


Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief

by OddityBoddity



Category: Agent Carter - Fandom, Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes Feels, But that is literally, CA:TFA, CA:TWS, COMPLETE!, Dark, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting grim here, HOH!Clint, I promise you, M/M, No Tentacle Sex, Oh god Bucky NO, Oh god Clint NO, Past Sexual Abuse, Pure Nonsense, Sandwiches, Self-Harm, Torture, discussion of porn, homebrew sign language, my only guarantee, off-screen sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-09 22:57:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 33
Words: 43,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3267479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OddityBoddity/pseuds/OddityBoddity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He has learned, from listening in cafes and in bars, that Steve Rogers has come to the future with him, and that he is working in SHIELD, and SHIELD is, was, one of Hydra’s many heads.   </p><p>He knows that Steve Rogers has disappeared. That he was summoned to a hearing and did not attend, and this has made the news. It did not escape Bucky’s notice that Steve Rogers is a match for him, even with the metal arm. It is not outside the realm of possibility that Rogers is going to try to recover the Asset. It may even be that Steve is an Asset himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Bucky Barnes Defense League Strikes Again

**Author's Note:**

> Zarhooie keeps giving me all these god damned ideas. I'm stitching them together into a colossal fic. I'm sorry in advance.
> 
> Also, I think somebody on here or tumblr uses the handle Bucky Barnes Defense League. I am sorry.

Bucky is standing at the mouth of an alley, staring at the graffiti on the wall. It’s a stencil of a man’s face that has been blasted out in an act of vandalism so rapid it left the edges of the stencil blurred and the paint too thick and running in places. There are words framing that face.

It is the same face he saw at the Smithsonian exhibit, and the ads for the same that are plastered on buses and billboards. It is the face that looks at him when he passes a mirror, or checks behind him in the reflection of windows.

The words around this image say, _The Bucky Barnes Defense League Reminds You to Protect Bucky Barnes at All Costs._ The face in that frame is his own.

“Defense League?” he murmurs, staring at the graffiti. Then he tries the whole thing out. “The Bucky Barnes Defense League.”

He did not know there was such an organization, and he cannot tell if they are what they appear to be. He knows the civilian authorities are looking for him; everyone will be looking for him. Hydra will do what it takes to recover the Asset. What’s not clear is who is Hydra and who is not.

He has memories now, not that they help much. Of memories there are two types: fragments of memory that clung to him like burrs, the things that never got scrubbed out, and the new ones. The old ones are of no use to him. They are memories where everything is too big, taps far out of reach, stairs enormous. Later, a skinny, sickly boy sketching rude comics in a little book balanced on his lap. The same boy, almost grown, maybe grown but still small, doubled over, throwing up while people shriek and something heavy goes whooshing and rumbling behind them. Those memories are of no practical value. The new ones, though, they are. He remembers a well dressed man sitting a cross the table from him issuing a kill order on _t_ _wo level sixes_. Afterward, in a bank vault, another man, heavy shoulders, short dark hair, and square jaw, wearing light tactical gear. His expression reading, _Better you than me_. And the chair-

_No_.

He shakes his head at the memory, winds forward to where the new memories are as fragmented as the old until some combination of blood, and terror, and his name, and the face under his fist, and the words _you’re my friend_ thunked into place in his mind, the weight of it like a shutdown code. Then the screaming of the mission imperative was suddenly muffled by a thought, the first in God knew how long, which bobbed up out of no where.

_What am I doing?_

Hesitation. Arm raised, metal hand fisted, but not coming down again. 

Man on the bridge, child drawing, skinny guy throwing up, people laughing and shrieking with delight in the distance, the weight of guilt _sorry pal I shouldn’ta made you ride that thing_ and the warm weight of fondness. Sets of memories colliding with the force of a cybernetic arm driving a fist into the zygomata of a supine opponent.

_I’m killing him._

Horror, like the sensation of falling. _Oh God. I’m killing him._

He stopped. Mission abort. Asset AWOL.

He knows that he and Rogers were made to fight, and that, whatever Rogers' orders, the Asset's orders were to kill. It would be easy to believe those orders were because Rogers is _a pain in the ass_ , which is something Bucky knows though he doesn't know how. It would be easy to believe there was a mission of real importance that went pear-shaped two weeks ago. Easy to believe, but possibly untrue. It would not be the first time the Asset has been made to fight for the amusement of others, or to kill someone from his past as a display of the thoroughness of programming. And there had been something wrong with his programming, and so they put him in the chair-

_No._

In the intervening weeks, Bucky has learned that Steve Rogers was working with SHIELD, and SHIELD is, was, one of Hydra’s many heads. 

He knows that Steve Rogers has disappeared. That he was summoned to a hearing and did not attend, and this has made the news. People are talking about it.

It did not escape Bucky’s notice that Steve Rogers is a match for him, even with the metal arm. It is not outside the realm of possibility that Rogers is going to try to recover the Asset for Hydra. It may even be that Steve is an Asset himself. 

Until he figures it out, he knows it’s best if he’s not seen. Not visible. A ghost again. The spectre the big guys tell the babies about. A myth.

Which be would a whole hell of a lot easier if the goddamned Bucky Barnes Defense League wasn’t spray-painting his face on every street corner and manhole cover in the neighborhood he was living in.

 


	2. Little Dogs Bite, Big Dogs Bay

It might be the first time Natasha has been followed by reporters barking questions and cameras going off in her face. _Like distractions. Like gunfire,_ she thinks. She knows how to manage those things. She know what it is to feel exposed and vulnerable when the thing that is pointing at her is the barrel of a gun. She calls up calm that comes with the familiar and a tiny smile comes up with it. She hadn’t realized there could be so much power in merely being seen. It’s making her feel a bit giddy.

One of the reporters darts ahead of her and pushes his way backward through the door. She follows, reaching out to stop the door from swinging closed on her and the weight of it jars the gunshot wound in her shoulder. Maybe even takes her little smile away. She would like to curse, but the cameras are rolling, and anything but calm and cool would be more fuel for the media fire.

She’s already _possible_ _traitor_ , _Russian-born American,_ and _terrorism suspect_ in the news, and she’s the _Russian cunt_ and the _commie bitch_ in the comments. She knew when she exposed her belly people would bite. She had been surprised how many little dogs thought they ought to take a nibble too. It’s been exhausting. Pressures on pressures. She knows that this kind of steady erosion can break a person.

Outside the world unfurls before her; blue sky, green grass, the stately marble grey of government buildings marching back and forth across the landscape, and the sprawl of the city beyond. She could rush into it and disappear, the way she has a hundred thousand times before. She could become an Amy or a Jenny or a Renee and be a secretary or a clerk or an assistant at an office in a sleepy little town. And die of boredom. Besides, she’s never gotten to be Natasha Romanov, friend of Steve Rogers, witness at a deposition, whistle-blower and protagonist before. So the little dogs bite and the big dogs bay, so what? There’s a part of her that likes this new identity, and that is an altogether new sensation.

As she’s going down the steps a big black towncar comes circling around and stops right in her path. A guy gets out. He’s white, about her age, and wearing a driver’s uniform, his cap pulled down. He comes around to the passenger’s side and opens the door.

“Ma’am,” he says as she comes down the last few steps. The cameras are still rolling so it wouldn’t do to emote just now. She ducks inside and he closes the door for her.

Inside the car smells like leather and faintly of orange, as if somebody’s just detailed it. The driver gets in and closes the door. Neither of them speak while the car pulls away. The back windows are tinted but the front isn’t, and anybody with press credentials is going to speculate on anything said. It’s better to give them nothing.

They’re riding in silence out on the highway before the driver pulls off his cap to expose a mess of blond hair and a tiny hearing aid tucked behind his ear. Clint glances over his shoulder at her and then passes her a little first aid kit.

“You’re bleeding through,” he says.

She looks down at her shoulder. He’s right. The fabric on the left side of her jacket is shiny and wet.

“You want a detour to a hospital?”

“It’s fine. I jarred it leaving the hearing.” She unbuttons her suit jacket and the upper part of her shirt. It was to early to change from cotton bandages to bandaids, but the cotton wadding was ruining the line of her suit.

“Anything from Steve?” she asks, looking critically at her shoulder. Finishing her mission with a bullet in it didn’t do her any favours. It’s almost certainly going to scar.

“Steve who?” Clint asks.

“Steve Captain America Steve,” she says, daubing cotton wadding on the bloody mess. “Giant blond man. Not the beardy with the hammer, the other one.”

“Oh the one with the chin,” Clint says. “Yeah, nothing. His buddy Sam on the other hand, now that’s a guy with manners. He checks in twice a week. Him and Steve are coming back to NYC.”

Natasha’s stomach lurches. She presses the cotton into the wound and the pain makes her focus. “Are they bringing him?”

“No.”

She frowns. “Steve’s not the type to give up.”

Clint shrugs. “He’s not. Sam says there’s a rumour he’s in the city.”

Natasha considers this. She’s never had her mind wiped, but she knows a little about it. The wipes take memory of events, but not praxis. The Asset would have been useless without skill-memory, so they had to leave it untouched. But that meant leaving a lot of things not related to the mission: Habitual walking patterns, the ability to ride a bike and tie his shoes. All kinds of little fragments. Maybe praxis was what made it possible for Steve to reach him. They probably won’t ever know.

But it makes sense that New York would call to him. There would be things there that his body remembers; the distances of city blocks, the patterns of conversation, how to travel from one place to another. A familiar island in a sea of the unknown.

“Anyway,” Clint says, snapping Natasha out of her reverie, “I could have kept feeding your cat, but two weeks of senate hearings is enough, right?”

“More than enough. Thanks for the extraction.”

Clint laughs. “You can count on me,” he says.

“I know,” she says.

Clint’s neck goes pink.


	3. Tentacle-Tentacle

He’s passing one of those dirty little alleys when he hears the noise. He knows the alley is a dead end, just like knows the noise is the held-in sound people make when they are hurt and don’t want to show it. The scuffling noises are the sounds feet make on concrete when two bodies have come together for violence. A guy, a kid really, teenager and pimple-faced, goes running from the side street and nearly crashes into Bucky. He doesn’t, though. Instead he makes a noise somewhere between a Tarzan scream and a yodel, breaks like a deer and runs across the road and up the street and out of sight.

Bucky looks into the alley. It’s late and it’s dark and drizzling and the light is bad, but he can still see. There’s a concrete wall and in front of it, as if the wall were a backdrop to a play, there are two figures. One of them is a large person, the other small and skinny. They’re tangled in the way that means fucking or fighting, and even from this distance, Bucky knows it’s the latter. It’s not his business and he ought to keep walking.

But rage and exhaustion blossom inside Bucky’s chest as if someone had deployed one of the chemical packages embedded under his skin. Half a dozen strides carry him to the two fighters.

He has just enough time to notice the small guy is dressed in some kind of bizarre costume. Reds and blues, a fabric that clings as if wet to the body. The bigger guy is in a huge, lumpy blue coat, the buttons practically bursting off it as he flicks wild punches at the dancing, dodging kid.

Bucky grabs the kid around the waist, picking him up, turning, and putting him back down. “God damn it, Steve,” he snarls. Then he turns to the big guy, who’s stepped back, panting, looking at Bucky like he’s not sure if his night just got better or worse.

“Hey,” the skinny kid shouts, tone indicating a mix of indignation and concern. “Hey, be careful. That guy’s poisonous!”

_Poisonous?_

As if in response, that guy shifts, like he’s going to wipe his bloodied nose, but it’s not a hand that comes up to wipe the blood. It’s brightly coloured, blue and yellow. It's long. It's … Bucky’s brain rejects the information sent by his eyes.

His brain says, _Say again, eyes?_

 _Tentacle,_ the eyes report. _Not a hand, a tentacle._

 _Like tentacle-tentacle?_ His brain asks.

When the tentacle strikes him in the cheek like a slap, his skin confirms. Cold. Wet. Squishy. And covered in suction cups. Tentacle-tentacle. The spot stings. And then it _burns._ His eye begins to prickle and then to stream. He doesn’t think; he’s been trained to move toward the pain so he moves in, and punches as he does.

That’s all it takes, one good punch to the jaw. It’s like hitting an off-switch. The guy begins to fall and Bucky lets him. He steps back. There’s a _thppp_ on his left hand side, and a gout of white shoots by him, splattering the octopus-armed man in the face and chest and pinning him in a sticky mess to the wall.

The skinny kid in the crazy outfit grabs Bucky by the arm. “Hey, did he hit you? Crap, he hit you. You should probably get to the hospital as soon as you can. I mean. Wait. He _did_ hit you right?”

Bucky's face hurts, it throbs, and that eye won’t stop streaming. “Yeah,” he says.

“Okay, well, I can get you to the hospital. If you want. You’ll, uh, have to hang on to me though.”

 _Hang on to you?_ He looks back at the skinny guy in his goofy outfit. He’s a little shorter and a lot lankier than Bucky is, his hands held up in front of him, fingers splayed out, as if Bucky’s the one who needs to calm down here.

“I don’t need to go to a hospital,” he says.

The kid straightens up. “Actually you’re in serious trouble. That’s blue-ringed octopus venom _._ In fact…" the kid's voice changes just a bit, from a little frantic to curious. "You really ought to be screaming or dead by now. Not that I’m disappointed but, I mean… Hey. Wait a second.” The kid tips his head a little to the side, and because of the weird mask and the giant black eyes, Bucky can’t tell what he’s thinking. The kid points at him.

“He hit you in the face but you hardly have a mark.”

“I heal fast,” Bucky says, because it seems to him that’s an accusation, but of what Bucky’s not sure.

The kid rocks back on his heels and looks him up and down and then starts like he’s been shocked. “Holy jeeze is that a…” he stops. His head bobs. “Sorry. Um. Look, I don't want to be a jerk or anything but I… is your arm really made of metal? Or is that some kind of armor on it?”

Bucky looks down at it. Usually he keeps his left hand tucked in his pocket, but in the fight he used it. “It's metal,” he says.

“Huh,” the kid says back. “Well… I guess you’re a new super on the block?” Bucky’s not sure what that even means, but the kid doesn’t wait for an answer. “So, we haven't met but, wow, thanks for the assist. Seriously. I didn't want to get in too close. I don't have healing powers. Always nice to meet another good guy,” he adds. He sticks his gloved hand out at Bucky. “Spider-Man. You?”

“Um,” Bucky says, and shakes the offered hand. It’s automatic.

“New to it? Take it from me, the police aren't super excited about, uh, non-police policing, if you see what I mean." Bucky doesn’t, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Spider-Man goes over to the guy having a nap where he’s stuck to the wall. He unbuttons the big blue coat and a half-dozen more tentacles flop out. “I do kind a wish you hadn’t punched him out,” the kid says. “It’s seriously not his fault. Somebody’s been doing these crazy human-animal experiments. It’s pretty awful. Definitely not ethics-committee approved.” He starts working the coat off the guy and drops it in a heap on the ground, then rucks up the guy’s shirt and has a look at the his bare side. “Yeah, right there.” He points and Bucky looks. There’s a tattoo, two lines of three dots, like a six on a die, just under the ribs. “They’re all marked like that,” the kid says. He sounds a little sad.

“Human experiments,” Bucky says.

“Yeah,” the kid answers. “Like I said. Scary, dangerous, totally not his fault. If you run into another one, maybe try not to punch them out? They can't help it. Whatever's being done to them is making them aggressive too.”

Bucky nods. “What are you going to do with him now?” he asks. He is surprised to find it difficult to make the words.

“I know somebody who can help him.” the kid answers. He shrugs his narrow shoulders. “The other two are doing okay now. Hopefully he’ll be alright too.”

The kid begins unsticking the guy from the wall, wrapping him up in more of that goopy white ropey stuff. Bucky looks down at the abandoned coat and then grabs it. It’s dirty and it smells like the beach at low tide, but there’s something about it that is relaxing to his mind. Maybe it’s the warm wool under his fingers, or the dull shine of the buttons. He slips it on. It’s a little too big, but not by much. He can move the buttons and it will fit him just fine. He didn’t know he knew how to sew, but he’s sure he does.

“I want this coat,” he says.

The kid glances back at Bucky. “You might as well have it. Not like it’s gonna fit him after they take off the tentacles and all he's got are two boring old arms again.” He looks back at his work, but he keeps talking. “Hey, if you’re gonna super, you should probably have some kinda name. And maybe a mask,” he says.

A name and a mask.

He considers the first thing. Name. The Asset. He does not want to be the Asset any more. “How do I know what to call myself?"

“Call yourself something about how you look. It's what the press is gonna do anyway. There’s Iron Man, the Hulk, Captain America.”

“I’ve heard of that guy,” Bucky says quietly.

The kid laughs, like that was supposed to be a joke.

“I’ve got spider powers,” the kid says. He makes a sign with his hand and the ropy stuff comes out in a jet. Maybe out of the costume, maybe out of _him_. “Amazing, right? So I’m "the Amazing Spider-Man". But people just call me "Spider-Man" most of the time. Well. All of the time."

 _More like Spider-Kid_ , Bucky thinks, but doesn't say it. He looks down at the jacket. It’s thick and warm and doesn't smell too bad. He likes it. He puts his hands in the pockets and finds a wadded-up kleenex in one of them and ten cents in the other. "What about The Coat?" he asks, dropping the kleenex into a heap of other garbage.

"Wow," the kid says. "That's awful. Maybe something tougher sounding? Roboarm? Or you could go for Bluejacket or something."

That last one, that's close. It’s like the anticipation of pleasure. “Bluejacket. Blue…jay,” Bucky says quietly, testing it out. “Bluejay,” he says again. There should be an animal part, if the kid gets Spider. "Bluejay," he says, more firmly this time.

"Bluejay?” Spiderkid asks, heaving the wrapped-up octopus guy up on his shoulders. "Seriously? Hawkeye, Falcon… Are bird names in style right now or something?"

"What's wrong with it?" Bucky doesn't mean to sound hurt, but he does.

The kid gestures at him. "You’ve got an all-metal robot arm.”

Bucky scowls. "I'm not my arm," he says, and he says it very quietly.

"Okay, okay." Spiderkid says. "Well, it's better than The Coat. And it'll make getting a mask easy."

The mask. His stomach clenches up at the thought of it. But it's a requirement. He doesn't have to like it, he just has to do it. "Where do I get one?"

"At a party supply or something. Don't go to the superhero supply store in Brooklyn; it's not what it sounds like."

Bucky nods. "Does it…" he hesitates, then remembers the kid has a big guy on his shoulders, and the guy needs help. "Does it have to cover my whole face? The mask I mean."

The kid laughs. "It could be an eye patch and a pirate hat if you want. As long as it stops people from recognizing you." Spiderkid walks to the alley wall and then begins to crawl up it, as if the whole world has tilted. Bucky blinks and fights down a wave of vertigo. "I told you, spider powers," the kid calls down. "See you around, Bluejay.”

"See you round," he calls back.

On his way out of the alley he realizes there's a stencil of his face in baby blue on the corner there. The image is a 3/4 profile. He's frowning and wearing a crown of flowers. The text reads _LONGEST SERVING P.O.W._

He stares at it a long time, then thinks _I need to get a god damned mask_ , and goes looking for one.


	4. Method

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm two glasses of wine in. This might get deleted later.

On he way back to the apartment he's squatting in, Bucky notices there's a store open late. It’s down a few steps, the bright windows peeking up above the level of the street, like a kid trying to look over a counter. It’s one of the only stores open in this neighbourhood at this time of night, and it's ideal for Bucky's purposes. The sooner he can get the mask, the sooner he can move freely around the city.

He goes down the three gum-speckled steps and pushes into _Adam and Eve Boutique_. An atonal electronic chime goes BING BONG. It makes his skin bunch up.

This is a blue shop, and not the first he’s ever been in. In the fragments of his youth, he remembers catching a closing door and holding it for a slower, blond kid, who was following behind. He remembers feeling breathless and warm in regions normally not thought about in stores in the two, maybe two and a half minutes that elapsed between ducking into the store after some guy in a hat, and being spotted by the clerk. As the Asset, he discovered they were open when hardware stores were closed and provided things that could be used for subduing targets. Other things, too, but at the time his only thought had been sturdy leather or rope that would not leave marks on skin. Blue stores are useful, and the clerks are always knowledgeable. He goes to the till, where there’s a plump young man sitting with a paperback book.

“Excuse me,” he says to the clerk.

“Hey,” the clerk says back, then his eyes widen just a little. “Hey…” he says again, a little slower.

“I need a mask,” he says. The clerk looks at him a fraction too long. “A mask,” Bucky says again.

“Right.” The guy blinks and shakes his head, like he's resetting himself. “Style?” he asks and Bucky doesn’t know.

“Modern?” he asks back.

“I mean what kind? Like, how much?" He pauses and Bucky has no answer. The clerk tries again. "Something that covers the full face?”

Darkness and disorientation and--

_NO._

He shakes his head.

“Half mask? Over the mouth?”

Too hot, restriction. He would bite the hands on him if his mouth was free—

_NO._

His stomach is knotting up. Nausea. Trouble breathing. Wants to close eyes. _Organophosphate attack?_ He wonders, sudden and automatic, if mission control is going to deploy the atropine package in his thigh, then he remembers. No mission control. Not a combat scenario. Chemical weapons unlikely. It's panic. He does not want to be the Asset again. He does not want to be the Asset in the marrow of his bones. He breathes. He knows there is a diazepam package embedded in his shoulder, but he can't deploy that on his own, however much he might want it.

The clerk is looking at him. He's going to cause alarm soon, if he's not careful.

“No," he says at last. "Nothing over the mouth.”

The clerk nods and shrugs. “Okay. That narrows it down.” He starts toward a rack of shiny things, mostly black leather, but some red, some white, one a lurid purple. “How about a harlequin mask?” He plucks one out of the hanging collection of leather and vinyl things and shows to Bucky. It’s small, two loops of fabric, a slim leather tie to secure it. He can take full breaths again.

“Style's okay. But it's too shiny,” Bucky says.

“No problem,” the clerk says. “I’ve got a matte black, a matte charcoal, and…” he pushes a few items along the rack. “Sequin-edged is probably not what you're looking for.”

“The matte black,” Bucky says.

The clerk grabs it off the little hanger. Bucky follows the clerk to the counter and while the clerk is wrapping it in pink tissue paper, Bucky quickly counts out the cash, keeping his left hand hidden behind a display of flavoured lubes.

“Anything else for you?” the clerk asks.

Bucky shakes his head and pays and becomes aware, about half way through the transaction, that this is awkward. Someone ought to be talking now. He looks at the clerk and the clerk looks back at him, his eyes a little too wide again, his body angled toward him.

“Look,” the clerk whispers, sliding the bag across the counter. “Normally I don’t get like this with customers but-" Bucky has less than half a second to internally curse the BBDL and their damn stencil campaign before the guy says "-I totally recognize you from the _Commandos_ movies _._ ” He seems, for a moment, to be shrinking behind the counter, like gravity is working extra hard on him. “Would you… would you be willing to sign a couple copies?”

Bucky blinks. The clerk makes a _wait_ gesture and stumbles over something in his haste to get around the counter, to a display of DVDs, and grabs two from the stack. He comes back, fumbling with a sharpie, and sets the works down on the counter in front of Bucky.

Bucky looks at the two DVDs. One is faced with an image of a skinny blond guy bent over an old-fashioned looking desk, and clearly, _clearly_ being fucked by a guy who really does look like Bucky. Short hair, though. And no visible enhancements. That's _The Commandos: When Booty Calls_ and the tagline reads "Private Rodgers does what it takes to pass inspection". The second DVD features a big blond guy fucking the guy who looks like Bucky while a group of semi-nude men look on. That's _The Commandos II: Every Man Must Do His Duty._ Tagline: "Captain Rodgers is coming, and you're all coming with him."

He looks at the clerk and then at the DVDs again.

This is better than actually being recognized, if awkward. The actors’ names are listed on the front of the DVDs, but he doesn't know which one is the one who looks like him. The clerk is staring at him. Bucky takes the pen and signs both copies, _James B Barnes_.

The clerk’s eyes get even wider. “Oh my god,” he moans, closes his eyes and clutches the DVDs to his chest. “You’re _method_.” He opens his eyes. “Look, can I ask? Is the mask for the new movie? Are you, uh, _in_ _training_ right now? I heard the next one is going to be after you've been rescued but the stuff they injected you with is making you all crazy horny and you can't control yourself. That's what people are saying on line anyway."

Bucky nods. “Yeah,” he says, because he would like to disentangle himself from this without making a fuss and agreeing seems to be the best way.

The clerk lets out a big breath. “God I can't _wait_ for that. Hey, can I take a selfie with you?" he's got his phone out, leaning in toward Bucky, grinning back at his own held-out phone, grinning so hugely that Bucky knows it's not an attack but he doesn't know what it is. There's a moment where the clerk leans in close and nothing happens and then he laughs and looks at his phone. "Awesome. Perfect. Thank you so much."

“No problem,” Bucky says. He takes the bag with the mask in it and is real glad when he gets back outside.


	5. Home is a place with no chairs

He thinks about the DVDs as he walks. The thought of them makes him pleasantly warm, makes a sourceless sort of gnawing in him. If he chases that sensation he remembers a red-haired woman laughing softly in his ear, not a cruel laugh, and the words _you see, soldier, you_ are _human_ in Russian, whispered in his ear. Pleasure in the body as foreign as a new language.

Warm, and pleasure. He thinks about that, and about before. He thinks about the images on the covers of the DVDs and the blond man, the slim one, the one with the visible ribs, the high cheek bones. Loss. Longing. The Steve that died.

 _Died?_ His mind asks.

 _No… not died_.

Changed.

He remembers asking, _did it hurt? Is it permanent?_ It comes to him all at once. He remembers the night after the table and the familiar face and the familiar voice but the unfamiliar body. He remembers realizing that whatever the damn doctors had done to him, whatever was in the shot they gave him, the needle that caused pulsing pain everywhere in his body, as if his bones were breaking and healing over and over again, it had happened to Steve too.

He searches his memory. There had been some kind of agreement. Bucky had agreed. He would take the pain, and they would leave Steve alone. That… hadn’t there been some kind of agreement? He remembers babbling something, _I don’t care. I don’t care what you do. Just don’t… just leave him alone._

Off the table, through the nightmare and the flames. The cold wash of fresh air over his skin. He remembers that first night, lying awake and working to breathe, just to keep breathing. Not screaming, not shouting, not smashing to pieces anything in grabbing range. He remembers the colossal rush of the rage that made him shake, a bigger sensation than any he had ever known before, even against the great sweeping pull of love. He knows now what he couldn’t have known then; the signature burst of a chemical package implanted under his skin, remotely deployed. He remembers thinking that what the enemy had done to him, the good guys had done to Steve. He remembers not knowing who the good guys were any more.

And now that he’s chasing the memory, following it like a thread, he remembers the too-big body sliding into the bed next to him. “Budge up,” Steve had whispered in his ear. Bucky had been shaking. Wanting to crush the doctor who had done this. To tear him apart like an animal. “C’mon Buck. I know you’re not sleeping.”

_Never gonna sleep again. Look what they’ve done to you._

But Steve was always good at suffering and he suffered quiet. Bucky was bad at it. Didn’t have Steve’s practice, clenched his teeth and stayed awake because everything hurt and everything was rotten and whenever he closed his eyes he saw that devil-face. Next morning he couldn’t talk right, and Morita told him he’d broken his tooth. Had to take it out. They didn’t have anesthetic. Booze didn’t work.

_Did it hurt?_

_A little._

Steve always suffered so quiet. When Morita took out the tooth, Bucky tried not to make a sound.

*

He gets back to the place. It’s a dog-shit smelling apartment building that’s slated for demolition. The hair he slipped between the apartment door and the frame is still there - no one has been into the place. He pushes his way through and stands shaking in the entry way. The place is one-room, and when he made this his base of operations, he took the doors off the closet and the bathroom so there would be nowhere for a lurker to hide. He got rid of the furniture, heaved it all out into the alley where most of it was scavenged.

He breathes deep a few times and thinks about Steve and what he promised, and how he failed. He thinks of Steve and what Hydra did to both of them. He sighs. The apartment echoes emptily. _Good_ , he thinks. _Home is a place with no chairs._

 


	6. I ain’t no fortunate son

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS I once flew over New York, that's literally the most exposure I've ever had to the city in which all this takes place. So I'd like to thank the lovely @jenphalian who provided me a bucketload of details about the place. If the city works in this story at all, it's because of her.

When Sam leans forward and flicks on the car stereo, Steve’s glad. He’s not really awake enough yet to provide conversation, and Sam, sitting a little slouched in the drivers’ seat, looks baggy-eyed too. The song fades away and another one starts up.

_Some folks are born, made to wave the flag_

_Ooh they’re red white and blue_

Steve blinks and looks at the stereo.

_It ain’t me_

_It ain’t me_

_I ain’t no fortunate son_

He looks at Sam. Sam’s eyebrows go up. He looks from Steve to the stereo. “Haven’t heard _Fortunate Son_ yet, huh?”

“No. Are they… are they talking about me?”

Sam coughs.

“But I wasn’t born ‘silver spoon in hand’. Christ, Sam, we were _desperate._ I was a medical _experiment_ — _”_

“Look, you don’t have to tell me. Any anyway, I don’t care a lot for these guys.” He flicks the button and the station shifts to something bright and upbeat that Steve can’t really identify. “But, look,” Sam says, one finger tapping out time on the steering wheel, “in case you haven’t caught up, Korea sucked and then the Vietnam era _really_ sucked and your face ended up on a lot of stuff. On all sides. People have things to say about that.”

Steve nods, still smarting like he’s been slapped.

Sam looks forward again, eyes fixed on the traffic slowly bunching up ahead of them. “Honesty hour here. When I heard Captain America was back, you know what I thought? I thought it was all fake. I thought somebody’d picked a new blond white guy to put on posters to be a mouthpiece again.” He glances at Steve. “Imagine my surprise when it turns out the asshole lapping me at the Mall is a actually decent dude. The kind who’ll get gut-shot a couple times trying to save a friend.” He snorts. “You know, I was talking to my mom the day after we met and I told her, “That Steve Rogers guy. Turns out he’s nothing like his posters” and she was just as surprised as me.”

“Jesus Sam,” Steve whispers. “Really?”

“Sorry, but it’s true. What I’m saying is, people were pretty free with your image when you were in the ice. You’re a symbol.”

“I don’t… I never wanted to be a symbol. I just wanted to do what was right.”

“Bullshit,” Sam says, but without venom. Steve thinks he sounds tired. Well, the clock on the dash is showing half past four. It's pretty damn early.

“C’mon man," Sam says. "We just spent two weeks fighting Hydra, looking for your old war buddy, and sleeping in the car together, and, by the way, you snore like a bullhorn. You could be honest with me. About _everything._ ”

Steve looks at Sam for a long moment. Then he looks down at his hands. “It was a different time,” he says quietly. “If Bucky hadn’t looked out for me, I’d’ve probably ended up dead. Not just because I was sick. I used to get into a lot of fights.”

“This is my surprised face.”

Steve laughs.

“So you’ve always been a troublemaker,” Sam says, shrugging. “Even when you couldn’t back it up.”

“Especially when I couldn’t back it up,” Steve agrees.

“Because you were sick all the time?”

Steve cringes. It’s too close to a wound that still aches, so he tries to deflect it. “Well, we didn’t have TV in those days. Had to make our own fun.”

Sam nods. “I get it, man. You were sick in the eugenics era. You wanted to prove you had a right to be alive. You think I don’t know about that?”

Steve looks back at him. “I guess you do,” he says.

The car slows to a craw as the traffic finally bunches up and the street ahead is all glowing red taillights in the low light.

“Bucky saved me. From myself. I never… he was the only person I never had to prove myself to. He…”

“Loved you when you couldn’t.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, louder than he means to. “Yeah,” he says again, a little more softly this time. It aches like pneumonia used to ache. “Look, Sam, I’m sorry. I don’t want to… talk about him. When he’s not here.”

Sam turns his head and Steve elects not to notice the look directed at him. Instead he sighs and pushes his hands through his hair. It’s greasy. He can’t remember the last time he had a shower. They slept in the car last night, again, and hit the road early, early enough that’s it’s still dark and Steve’s stomach is acidic and unsettled.

“We gonna get breakfast soon?” Steve asks.

“Potato pancakes,” Sam agrees, and flicks on his turn signal. “And bottomless coffee. New York, I missed you.”

They pull out of traffic and into the parking lot of a little diner. Steve gets out, lets the warm, damp, early-morning air gust over him and scrubs his face with his hands. When he opens his eyes again, he sees that there’s a graffiti stencil image of himself looking back at him. He’s seen the ones of Bucky’s face, the weird Bucky Barnes Defense League stuff, but never one of him. He stares at it. It’s kind of like a mug-shot. He’s wearing the cowl and the top of the shield is visible.

“Hey,” Sam calls, then he sees it too. “Hey, ignore that. Symbols, remember? Like I said. Not personal. C’mon.” Sam pushes open the door and then stands half-way through, waiting for Steve to follow.

Steve has one last look at the image sprayed onto the wall. Under his mug-shot face are the words _FOR SALE._

 


	7. Pass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many thanks to the wonderful and generous Whichfandomdoipick for being pretty much on-call to consult about HOH!Clint. If the HOH stuff makes sense, it's because of her.

 

They don’t talk much while Clint drives. The aids aren’t great, and even though Clint can totally sign while he’s driving, it makes Natasha squirrelly. Besides, every time he glances in the rear view mirror he sees her sinking just a little more into the heated leather seats. Eventually she kicks off her shoes and tucks her feet up and closes her eyes.

After a few hours, when Clint’s stomach is starting to rumble, he pulls over at a Dunkin’ Donuts. He wriggles out of the suit jacket and takes off the tie, and glances into the back to find Natasha still curled up and eyes closed. He gets out of the car, leaves the door open just a bit so the click won’t wake her. He goes inside and gets a box of mixed donuts and a couple giant coffees, Natasha takes hers extra sweet, then sneaks back into the car as quietly as he can.

“Nice try,” she mumbles. He smiles at her.

“Get any sleep?”

“A little.”

She comes around to sit in the front with him, takes her coffee with a smile and a nod. She sips it, sets it down and signs, _Any trouble getting into the house?_

 _I had an old hazmat suit from that other job._ She nods, one finger passing back and forth over the sharp ridge of the plastic lid.

_No trouble getting in. The house was pretty clean. Cops everywhere, though. Of course. And Feds._

Their sign language is something they’ve been building since Budapest. It’s three parts ASL, one part Russian Sign Language, one part US military signs, and one part custom signs. They’re probably the only people in the world who would understand it.

Natasha gives their homebrew _you’re stalling_ sign.

“I’m telling a story,” Clint answers, like he’s offended. _I found a few things. Photos mostly. A couple things on a jump drive. A couple old files in Russian you might want to have a look through. There’s a box back at my place for you._ He pauses and considers what he wants to say. He doesn’t want to sign it. “It’s ugly stuff,” he says at last. He’s careful to keep his face neutral.

“And?” Natasha asks.

“And nothing.”

But she knows there’s something. He knows she knows.

“It’s bothering you.” Her finger rubs on the edge of the lid again, like she’s trying to cut the pad on the sharp edge.

He shrugs, like it doesn’t matter, but it is bothering him. This donut is the first thing he’s eaten since he found the things at Pierce’s house. It’s why he came up to DC in a rented town car and drivers’ uniform. Because afterward all he could think of was that the same people who had done those things to Barnes had once had control over Natasha. But he can’t _say_ that. She’d be furious if she found out. He’s gone a full twenty-four hours without being punched in the face and he feels like he’s on a roll.

Clint sighs. “Tash, everybody thought Alexander Pierce was agood man. Like, the definition of a good man. It’s upsetting.” It might be near enough the truth to squeak by.

Natasha tips her head and fixes him with a frown. Nope.

“Barton,” she says.

He scowls. “How did you know?”

“You only ever call me Tash when you’re trying to distract me from something else. You know I hate it. What’s bothering you?”

He considers the truth, and decides against it. “Pass,” he answers. She nods.

It’s a deal they have. Say pass, and that’s it for the day. Natasha looks at him for a long moment.

“Are you okay?” she asks quietly.

He stuffs the last of the donut in his mouth. The answer is no. The answer is he wants to wrap her up tight and put his mouth close to her ear and say _I’ll never let anyone do that to you again_. But, again with being punched in the face. “Pass,” he says one more time.

She nods as if to herself, and then pulls out her phone. She flicks it on and then smiles. “Hey, we got a hit on the social media feeds,” she says.

“We got a what on the what whats?”

She scowls at him. “Oh, please.”

“Seriously, that’s Stark’s department. I just shoot stuff.”

She snorts, then scoots over, and tips the screen so Clint can read it. It’s a Tumblr post.

_GUESS WHO WAS JUST IN MY STORE?_

 

And there it is, a pretty good face-forward image of the clerk and…

“Oh, hey, no, that’s just the guy from those…” Clint’s brain catches up with his mouth and shuts it down. Natasha glances at him. “Uh. Never mind,” he mumbles.

“You’ve seen him before?”

“Not really. I mean, he looks like this guy who’s a, uh, minor celebrity.” Clint can feel his ears getting warm, as if somebody put them under a heat lamp.

Natasha looks at him for a long moment, then back down at her phone.

“You know,” she murmurs, “I thought it’d be on a security camera or something. Not selfie with an adult store clerk.”

“You think it’s some kind of play?”

She smiles, warm and fond. “Maybe. What are you getting up to, soldier?” she murmurs. She thumbs her way down the post a little more.

_Okay, I’m still totally flustered but here are THE FACTS:_

_*Super nice but really quiet (shy?)_

_*Totally method (All unshaved, junky clothes, growly voice. *heavy breathing*)_

_*TOTALLY CONFIRMED HOWLING COMMANDORGY IN COMMANDOS III_

_*2 x signed DVDs available at the store_

And there’s a picture of two DVDs, both with the name _James B Barnes_ in tidy handwriting across the covers in black felt tip. The photo is mostly the signature and not so much the cover art, for which Clint is deeply grateful. “Huh,” he says. He takes a sip of coffee.

“They do look a lot alike,” Natasha says thoughtfully. “But Nico’s a little taller than Barnes. And, if you were paying attention to the docking scene in _Commandos II_ you’d know that Nico is left handed.”

Clint chokes on his coffee. She pats him on the back until he stops coughing.

 


	8. Bluejay will be busy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to Russians. And Canadians. The waitress lady is opinionated.

Sleeping is not new, but it is not familiar to Bucky in the way that the penetrating cold is. Now when he grows tired, he lies down on the bed he has made on the floor. He has collected a number of things to make a bad. There are cushions from a couch that was left in the alley, there is a stained pink blanket with a melted corner that scratches, and now, the dark blue jacket with the buttons fixed.

Before, when the Asset grew tired on missions, his handlers would remote-activate an adrenaline package under his shoulder. He remembers the feeling of frantic energy blooming in his chest, spreading like a stain, driving him until stairs, doors, a cold sort of airlessness, the shining cylinder of the tank, the door opening—

_No._

His self recoils. He does not want to remember this, but his mind won’t stop pulling up the memory. It has control of him and he cannot shove it down.

The tank, the tech heaving open the door with the little window like a diving-bell. If the mission had been long and the adrenaline overused sometimes he would hear his voice echoing out of the tank back at him _no please please don’t put me in please_.

He covers his head with his arms and curls up where he lies. Warm, softness under him, able to stretch his spine, protect his guts, to cover his head; he could not have done those things in the tank. Not enough space, not enough time. Just enough time to see turned backs, exchanged banalities. Just enough time to lip-read the word _vacation_ on someone’s mouth, just enough time to feel clenching panic. Just enough time to admire the horror of the mind that made the tank. _What kind of an asshole would put a god damned fucking window in this thing?_ Then, cold.

The memory shakes him like a thunderstorm hitting a mountainside. It is not a night for sleeping, not even there among the warm, soft things in this place where he can move and shift, where there is no one to close the heavy door and spin the lock, no sigh of ice-cold gasses. Not even under his new coat.

It is a bad night.

 

The memories give him up some time around dawn, and he feels like he's been washed up on the tideline. He drags himself out of his bed and goes looking for some breakfast.

He’s getting to know this neighbourhood pretty well. At the end of the street there’s a Housing Works where he got thick jeans with a hammer loop, and an undershirt and tshirt that let him pass as a labourer without drawing too much attention. The store is shuttered for the night, but across the street from it is a diner that he’s been to before. This time of morning it’ll be quiet, the staff will be sleepy, and he can sit in the corner unbothered and drink endless cups of coffee that does nothing for him except warm him and fill his bladder up.

He pushes inside, nods at the lady leaning against a table with her arms crossed. She doesn’t see him; she’s too busy watching one of the big TVs that are bolted onto the walls. He glances up at the screen too. It's a news program. The image is a red-haired woman smiling faintly, pushing through a door, walking down some steps, and getting into a car that appears as if on cue. Blond driver in a polyester suit and cheap shoes.

“She knows more than she’s saying,” the waitress says in a low voice, as if Bucky had asked her opinion on the news story. “If the Feds have half a brain in their heads, they’ll arrest her. Threaten to put her pretty ass in jail and you bet she’ll start talking.”

Bucky considers this. On the TV, the car carrying the woman disappears down a road, and the image changes to a man and a woman seated behind a desk, talking at the camera.

“God that girl,” the waitress says. She disappears behind the counter and her voice comes out from somewhere unseen. “I think the end of communism was real bad for them. It screwed a lot of them up. The Russians, I mean.”

That startles him. “She’s Russian?” he asks.

The waitress reappears with a pot of coffee and a heavy ceramic mug on a saucer. “Well her last name is _Romanov_ ,” she says, following Bucky as he makes his way to the green-and-grey upholstered booth that has the best view of both exits. “I don’t figure it gets more Russian than that. Wasn't that their king's last name? I'm pretty sure it was.”

 _Russian,_ he thinks, and suddenly two fragments in his head lock together. Her voice, a whisper, _see, soldier, you_ are _human._ That little smile. Himself, gasping in shock. Pleasure like a bolt of lightning. He had forgotten pleasure entirely. Didn’t know he could feel, much less feel _good_. His mind sweeps other fragments up together _kill-shot through her body, a figure running through a crowd in Budapest, a bullet that caught him between the eyes and broke the goggles, sudden weight on his shoulders, a garrotte, fury, hate, a mission going south fast, too distracted, a shot off the midline, fuck you bitch they are not going to punish me for you again—_

Bucky sits down in the booth. The plastic seat smells like bleach, the faded table top is spotless, a condiment caddy exactly equidistant from both seats. He stares at it.

“I think it’s that, and all that snow,” the waitress says.

“What?” Bucky asks, blinking.

“All that snow. In Russia. Like Canada. Long winters. Makes people crazy.” The waitress puts the cup down and fills it. “Now the English. There’s a practical people. It’s Smith,” the waitress adds, pointing to herself. “Like Dame Maggie. Doesn’t get more English than that. You?”

He hauls his mind back from the memories to the moment. “Uh. Rogers,” he says.

“That’s English too,” she says, and nods. “Mind if I leave the news on? Looking to see if they found Jada or not.”

“Jada?” He's not sure if this is a name he will be expected to know, a celebrity or politician's name, so he doesn't say anything more.

“Ella West’s girl. She joins the army and I told Ella not to let her go. Army’s no place for a girl.”

He remembers a _dame_. The word comes up with the memory. Brown hair, bright eyes, a pretty, curving mouth, red with lipstick, red as the dress hugging her curves. Quick temper, and a vocabulary that could peel paint. 

“So what happens?” the waitress says, rolling her hand over and over in the air. “She joins up and goes missing on her first leave.” The waitress sighs. “I don’t like being right all the time. Especially not about stuff like that." She looks back at him. "Pancakes again? Same as yesterday?”

“Yes ma’am,” he says. “Um. That woman. She’s… missing from here?”

“The West’s have been in the neighbourhood ever since there was a neighbourhood here,” the waitress says. “Here, you'll see. I’m gonna turn on the sound.”

Bucky watches the TV while the waitress goes into the kitchen.

There’s a thirty-second spot where the blond woman looks into the camera and says, _The search continues for the missing Private Jada West._ A photograph. A young woman smiling, rich, dark skin, close-cropped black hair, big smile, wearing fatigues and playing with a dog. Another picture, same woman, dress uniform. There’s a buzzing in his head. He has to look down at the multi-coloured flecks on the tabletop and count. Thirty seconds is all. Thirty seconds doesn’t sound like much but it is. It’s enough time for a needle to slip under the skin. Enough time to go from _James Buchanan Barnes_ to something else. Thirty seconds strapped down on a table is a hell of a long time.

He looks at the table until the waitress comes back. It takes a long time, and when she comes back she’s got the pancakes and the big pot of coffee.

“Anything else, honey?” she asks.

He looks up at her. “Any idea how I would get in touch with Spider-Man?”

She laughs. “You trying to win that five grand from the Bugle?” She runs her tongue over her teeth. “Well, Shoshanna says she sometimes sees him around ESU. You could try up there.”

“Thanks,” he says.

She leaves him with his meal and he eats. He’s learned that his body will fail if he doesn’t eat enough, so he eats every scrap. Steve is not the only person who needs saving. Bluejay will be busy. He needs his body to work.

 


	9. Into Tawny Towers

“So it’s the second day and we’re out looking for Stark,” Sam says, cutting into his omelette with the side of his fork. “Me and Riley, and Steph, who was in a different unit, and this guy Donald. We’re all tired and edgy, because it’s Stark, right? So wherever Stark’s being held, it’s going to be really heavily armed, right? This isn’t your usual search-and-rescue mission. Plus, there’s a rumour that Colonel Rhodes is gonna oversee the search party, and, man,” Sam gestures to himself with a fork full of omelette. “Colonel Rhodes is my personal hero, okay?”

Steve nods, wiping up egg yolk with the last of his toast.

“That and the night before we'd all heard a rumour about a chemical weapons dump in the neighbourhood.”

The waitress comes over and tops up Sam’s coffee, then Steve’s. She seems to be coming over a lot, and lingering near their table. Sam does tell good stories.

“Thanks,” Sam says to her, saluting briefly with the refilled cup. “So, we’re all standing around organizing the search grid for the afternoon and the wind changes and there’s this weird smell in the air, so now we’re _all_ freaking out a little, and Donald says, ‘I don’t feel good guys’ and then he just runs with it, you know? We all do. I was thinking I didn’t feel right either. Too much heat maybe. But then Donald grabs his auto-injector…”

“Oh,” Steve says, eyes widening.

“And jams it into his leg to deploy the atropine, right? Except he was panicking and he had it upside-down.”

Steve winces.

“So the needle comes out and goes right through his thumb…”

Steve winces harder.

“…and sprays atropine all over Steph.”

Steve puts down his coffee and covers his face. “Oh god.”

“Okay, but worse, Steph had her mouth open at the time and it was like a _jet_ of atropine,” Sam goes on. “She actually got sick. I never saw atropine poisoning before that. She has these muscle spasms like she was getting shocked. Couldn’t breathe. She actually went blue. Good thing we were near a medic station. Steph was okay, but they had to fly Donald to a god damned NATO base to get the needle out of his thumb.”

Steve laughs into his hand.

“Yeah,” Sam says, “You laugh, but it was brutal. Nobody ever let us forget it. Oh, and guess who got to meet Colonel Rhodes on the tarmac when he was being flown out? Sure wasn’t me.” Sam sits back and hooks one arm over the back of his booth and shakes his head. “So we called him Dumb Donald after that.”

Steve laughs again. He likes this; there’s something of the long cold nights with the Commandos about being around Sam. His experiences are different from Steve’s, but the sentiment remains the same. Not enough resources, too big a job. Maybe a bit cynical, but undaunted. In the last two weeks, Steve’s come to like Sam more than just about anyone else he’s met in the future.

On the table between them, Sam’s phone chirps. He reaches for it and frowns at the message, then his eyes go wide. “Clint Barton says Natasha’s got a hit on your boy.”

Steve’s hands go numb. All the comfort rushes out of him, and anxiety comes flooding back like the tide. “Where?” he asks. “When?”

Sam’s brow eyebrows creep toward his nose. “What the hell?” he asks softly, then turns the phone around so Steve can see. It’s Bucky. It’s Bucky wearing regular street clothes. He’s standing in a store with a guy who’s maybe the clerk. He’s looking right at the camera. His eyes are partially closed, like he doesn’t trust the device. Like he’s not sure about the situation, but he’s waiting it out. _Bucky_. He needs a shave. He needs a haircut. He needs a god damned friend. Somebody should be with him. He shouldn’t be wandering the city, hurt, lost, hungry, confused, hunted.

Steve fumbles for his wallet, throws some money on the table. “Where is that?” he asks.

“Natasha’s sending the address, but it’s a couple hours old. He’s not gonna be there. _Steve,_ ” Sam says. “You hear what I said? He’s not going to be there.”

It doesn’t matter. It’s the closest thing to a breakthrough they’ve had for weeks.

 

*

 

The address, it turns out, is a 24hr adult store, and when they go down the steps into the place, the clerk looks up with a grin. “Hey,” he calls. “If you’re here about the DVDs I hate to tell you — _holy shit_.”

The clerk stares at Steve, mouth hanging open. Then he looks at Sam.

“For real?” he whispers.

Sam nods.

“Wow. I, um.” The clerk runs a hand through his black hair. “So. Holy shit, it’s really nice to meet you, Captain.” He swallows noisily. “Um. What can I… what… are you looking for anything in particular?”

“The man who was here earlier,” Steve says. “The one you took a picture with. Where is he?”

“Um?” The clerk’s smile gets a bit fixed. He looks at Sam, and Sam puts on hand on Steve’s arm.

“Easy, man,” he murmurs. “The guy who signed the DVDs, you know who that is?”

“Oh, Nico Ambrosia, yeah. Yeah, that was great.” He clerk’s grin refreshes itself, looks real again. “Sorry to tell you I sold the signed copies, like, right away. But I guess Nico’s in the neighbourhood? If he comes in again I’ll ask him to sign a copy for you. Wanna, um, leave your number?”

“Yes,” Steve says.

“No,” Sam says over him. “He a regular here?”

The clerk shrugs. “Between us? I’ve seen him around the neighbourhood a bit for the last week or so. I wasn’t sure till he came in, then…” he nods and shrugs. “Anyway, I think they’re filming somewhere around here but I don’t know.” Steve nods. He turns and starts toward the door.

“Hey,” Sam calls.

“He’s here Sam. He’s somewhere in the neighbourhood.” He pauses with his hand on the door. Sam nods at him, once.

The clerk looks from Steve to Sam. It’s pretty clear he thinks Sam is the stable, sensible one. Steve ought to be worried. He’s been getting messages from Pepper with subject headings that says things like _PR disaster_ and he knows Pepper is just trying to look out for him but he can’t bring himself to care. “You’re, um, big fans?” the clerk asks.

Sam glances at the clerk. He looks back at Steve and nods. “Get going. Call me if you find anything.”

Relief almost overwhelms Steve. He pushes through the door and rushes back out into the street.

 

*

 

He stands for a minute in the muggy morning air and tries to think like Bucky might be thinking.

On the helicarrier, Bucky showed no signs of being able to protect himself. Steve remembers with a sharp twist of guilt the heavy _thock_ of the shoulder joint slipping out of place, and the sound Bucky made, animal and pained and furious. And then afterward, when everything was falling to pieces and Bucky was trapped by the beam, Steve remembers his expression: small and frightened. As if he thought Steve would kill him while he lay helpless.

He'd seemed dazed when Steve pushed the beam off and let him get to his feet. It was like he could not understand why Steve had not killed him when he'd had the opportunity. As if it wasn't just his body that had been broken and built up again, as if it wasn't just his memory that had been savaged apart. It was as if his conception of humanity had been dismembered and rebuilt too. Rebuilt without knowledge of hope or mercy or friendship. That, more than anything, haunts Steve.

Two weeks since then. Once upon a time two weeks would have been more than enough time for Bucky to settle in a new place, make a bunch of friends, and get to dating the cutest girl on the block. But now Steve doesn’t know if Bucky has enough sense of self-preservation to find shelter. He almost certainly won't have spoken to anyone. After pages and pages of detailed medical torture, after years and years of missions, of murder, endless cycles of electrical shocks and cryo chambers and drugs, of handlers and liquid food, he doesn’t know if Bucky will even be able to care for himself any more. 

He shakes himself, reminds himself that Bucky looked okay in the picture. Thin but not gaunt. Clean enough that the clerk took a picture with him. He must be somewhere he can sleep and eat and wash.

Steve starts walking. There’s a diner down at the end of the street, brightly lit and mostly empty, one customer sitting alone in a booth, head turned away from the window, toward the big TV on the wall. There are a couple shops along the street, shutters down like sleeping eyes, and a big old Housing Works standing opposite the diner. There's also a derelict old apartment building standing boarded up near by. Steve angles toward it.

 _Tawny Tower_ , the sign out front reads, and under that somebody’s put up a big notice of demolition. The front door, plywood-covered, stands slightly open. Steve goes in.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story of Dumb Donald and the atropine is a riff on something I heard on the Chemical Warfare episode of one of my favourite podcasts, [Caustic Soda.](http://www.causticsodapodcast.com/2014/09/01/chemical-warfare-part-1-2/) If you like medical, historical, and gross, that podcast might be for you. (PS: Heed the warnings on that podcast, guys. For serious.)


	10. Sandwiches are love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been so slow about updating, guys! I'm having some RSI problems that are really making it hard to type. Hopefully they'll clear up soon. Thank you for your wonderful comments and your patience! As soon as my arms and shoulders stop hurting I will be back up to regular posting speed!

 

Bucky finishes his pancakes while the TV flashes an image of Captain America with the Hydra symbol on his chest where the star should be, and two people sitting on a couch begin to talk. He looks at the waitress.

“You believe that?” he asks. “About Rogers. That he’s Hydra?”

“Honey, I bet they’re all in somebody's pocket,” she says.

He frowns. If she's right, there are things he needs to do. He begins to make a mental list. He needs to find the spider-kid and ask him if he knows anything about the whereabouts of Steve Rogers. He needs to tell the kid about Jada West, ask him to look for her. If Steve is an asset, it's not just a matter of _finding_ him, Bucky needs to find Steve’s codes. He needs to do for Steve what Steve did for him on the helicarrier. He may have to go back to DC, to the big house with all the windows, to the place where Pierce asked him an impossible question, where he got his orders. He has been in that house before and has seen the weapons safe with the folder in the bottom of it. If there are reset codes for Steve, it is likely they are there. If there are not reset codes for Steve…

He doesn't know what he will do then.

Bucky pays with the money he took from a safehouse, and steps back out into the muggy morning air. He checks his interior pocket for the mask and finds it still there, a little ball of dark cloth nestled against his heart. Good. He gets moving.

A few blocks west of ESU, he hears somebody shouting. It takes a moment to button the coat up and to tie on the harlequin mask, but he takes the time. It’s better like this, in the early morning hours, covered, hidden, secure. When the mask is in place he runs toward the sounds.

It’s still dark enough that the orange sodium lights make everything ruddy and cast purple shadows on the ground. Down in the street there are three shapes. One is a woman on her knees, another is someone lying on the ground wrapped up in that weird webbing that Bucky remembers from the last time, and the third is Spiderkid.

 _Man. Spider-Man,_ his mind tells him sharply. _He’s probably the same age I was when I got my orders._ His mind must be testy from lack of sleep. It always was rebellious. That was part of why they built the chair. Bucky nods to himself. _Spider-Man,_ he amends. Maybe if he can be friendly with his mind, it’ll stop pummeling him with memories in the night, maybe it'll let him sleep. _Sure, brain, Spider-Man._

Spider-Man is standing over the kneeling woman. She's un-webbed, kneeling, big shoulders heaving, hands over her face.

 _Hands?_ his brain asks, remembering last time.

 _Hands. For sure hands_ , his eyes confirm.

She’s wearing fatigues that are dirty and almost worn through in places. Her boots are scuffed and filthy, her short hair is sticking up.

Spider-Man must hear him or something, because he turns and look at Bucky. “Bluejay,” he says, and Bucky’s surprised to hear the warmth in his voice. “Man, am I ever glad to see you.”

Bucky stares at him. No one has been glad to see the Asset since before the fall. No one has been glad to see the Asset since the Asset was born. He is a killer, a criminal, a fist, a tool. He doesn't know how to respond, but it doesn't seem to matter. Spider-Man points to the kneeling woman. “I could use a hand. I’ve got this guy,” he gestures to the webbed-up figure, “but then… she appeared, kinda out of nowhere and I really don’t want to leave her.”

"Jada West," Bucky murmurs. He can see the rank on her uniform, and the little tag that spells out her last name.

“You know her? Well, um,” Spider-Man says, “she’s pretty dangerous.”

“Of course she is,” Bucky snaps. “She’s a soldier.”

“Also a komodo dragon. Partly.”

Bucky doesn't know what that means. He eases himself down onto the concrete near Jada and leans in. “Private,” he says. “Can you hear me?”

“Hurts,” she whispers. “Everything hurts.” Her voice gets stronger, louder. “Everything hurts, everything hurts and _I’m a monster._ ”

She takes her hands away from her face. Her face is grey-blue and flaking, her mouth bubbles and bumps with teeth that don’t fit in her face. A glittering streak of saliva runs from those teeth, and soaks the front of her shirt. She lurches toward him and Bucky puts both hands up, but she's not coming at him with fists, she's coming at him with fangs. She bites at him, teeth sinking into the flesh of his hand. He pushes toward her automatically, driving elbow toward her head, and jerks back just in time. There’s a moment of silence. Then Jada’s jaw relaxes, he pulls his hand back and has a look at the damage. She’s drawn blood.

She gulps a few times. “Sh-shit,” she whispers and sniffles. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry about that. I can’t stop it.”

Bucky nods. He remembers. Disorientation and fear, not knowing what was real and what was not. A man who took his face off. A familiar face in a body that was all wrong. Fire. Hope and fear at war. Something in him that had changed, something heavy in his belly, as if he'd been eating stones. “Listen, this guy in the USO costume’s got a friend who knows what's going on," he says. "I'm gonna help you get there."

She nods and sniffles again. "I want to see my mama," she whispers.

"I did too," he tells her, and gets her to her feet.

 

*

 

Seems odd to Bucky that nobody at the hospital asks any questions about the patients they're delivering, and nobody seems surprised to see a man in a red and blue jumpsuit, but Bucky gets a few extra looks. Somebody says _sidekick_ but he doesn't know what that means and the place bugs him. The lights, shadowless spaces, the scent of antiseptic hanging in the air. He doesn't like the smell. He really doesn't like the smell. He doesn't want to stick around any longer than he has to.

They’re on their way out of the hospital and back through the early morning alley ways when Spider-Man turns to him. “I’m glad I bumped into you, or, I guess it was the other way around. Anyway that’s two I owe you.”

Bucky nods. He remembers. “About that," he says. "I need intel on Steve Rogers. I need to find him.”

Spider-Man stands totally still for a moment, then he laughs. "You and every reporter in the entire world," he says. Then he leans in a bit. "Wait, wait because of this thing with the experiments? You think he knows something about this? Because if there was anybody I thought was behind this, it was Doc Oc. But maybe I’m biased. Actually, I am. I totally am.”

Bucky shakes his head. He's exhausted. No sleep, memories jumbling up his mind, now the slow, throbbing pain in his hand is turning into a shooting pain that goes right up into his arm. He should have used his left side. “I… I hear people talking about him working for Hydra. Is it true?”

Spider-Man leans back. “Aw man, is that what’s going around?” He sighs. “Jeeze, people are saying some pretty crappy things about that guy these days, and take it from me, I know about bad press.”

"But is it true?"

Spider-Man shakes his head. “Who knows? But I'm pretty sure he's not hiding from the hearings or anything. I mean, he got hurt pretty bad in DC, I think.”

Bucky's belly twists.

“He’s probably at some secret location now. Like, maybe in a Stark lab or something.”

The twist evaporates and Bucky goes cold. He remembers failure, he remembers punishment. He remembers laboratories. He does not want that to be happening to Steve. That  _cannot_ be happening to Steve. And the Stark family. What the Winter Soldier did to them. If Anthony Stark is as smart as his father, if he has half the connections his father did, Anthony Stark will know what Bucky did. He will know, and if he wants to punish Bucky for it, he will know he can do that through Steve. “I have to find him," Bucky says. "Fast. I need to find him fast. And there’s a code. I need the code too.”

Spider-Man sighs. “Look, Bluejay, I don't think there's anything to the rumors but…" he scratches at the back of his neck. "So, it's midterms and I'm busier than I want to be. I have to keep my grades up. Scholarships. But I will totally ask around and if I hear anything about him, I’ll let you know. What’s your phone number?”

Bucky blinks. "I-I don't--"

“Or email? Email’s fine too.”

“I don’t have… I don’t have either of those things.”

“I guess it's smoke signals then?”

Bucky knows that was a joke, but it rubs at him like sandpaper. He scowls. “In the newspaper. In the lost and found section. Put it in there.”

“You mean in the _Bugle_?” Spider-Man laughs. He sounds delighted. “Now that would be hilarious. Okay, sure. Deal. Hang on a sec.” He holds up a gloved finger and goes over to a space where two buildings don't quite sit flush together. Bucky hears the _thppp_ of the webbing shoot out, and Spider-Man comes back with a backpack slung over one shoulder, open, long gloved fingers rifling the contents. “So, uh, hey, there’s no nice way to say this but you don't look so good.”

Bucky nods. “Yeah,” he says. He’s tired and he hurts and the thought of Steve in a lab somewhere, because he _failed,_ it’s making him queasy. “Just… You hear anything, tell me. It’s _important_.” He realizes, after he says the words, that he's almost begging. He steadies himself. “I think he’s in trouble. I think somebody needs to save him.”

“Yeah,” Spider-Man says again. His voice is soft and serious. “But what about you?”

Bucky stares at him. Spider-Man extracts a square wrapped in plastic from the bag and holds it out. “PB and J,” he says brightly, waggling the square at Bucky. When Bucky keeps staring, Spider-Man says, “Peanut butter and jelly. Well, jam actually. You don't have a nut allergy do you?”

"No," Bucky says.

"Oh good. They're sort of a specialty." He waggles the sandwich again. "I've been making extra. In case I bumped into you."

Bucky stares. He's gone numb. His mouth has become thick, as if it’s dried out. “Why?” he asks at last.

Spider-Man shifts from foot to foot. “Uh, I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just--” the narrow shoulders rise and fall “--I know what it’s like.”

“Like?”

“Being hard up. I've been there. It sucks.”

Bucky hears himself swallow. “No, I’m not--”

“Besides,” Spider-Man says as if Bucky hadn’t started to speak. “It’s nice to have another good guy on the block. Seems like the least I can do is buy you lunch.”

_Good guy._

His mind rejects the term. He thinks of blood, the screaming of metal twisting under the implacable grip of his left hand. Cars and bones and bodies crushed. He remembers Maria Stark dragging herself from the wreckage of the car, a trail of blood, her mouth making the shape of the name they took from him.

Bucky shakes his the memory from his head. “I’m not a good guy,” he whispers.

"Well, you seem okay to me,” Spider-Man says. “And I’ve got a sort of sense for this kind of stuff.” There’s a brief moment of silence between them, then the kid leans in. “It’s a spider power," he says.

Bucky takes the sandwich.

Again, silence. This time Spider-Man coughs. “So, I gotta go. Um. Midterms are killing me. But, uh, if you want I can bring sandwiches by your place tomorrow. You like egg salad?”

It comes to Bucky in a rush, the memory. Creamy, sweet and sharp with the taste of fresh red onion. The soft give of chewy bread, warm from the bombed-out bakery that was still, against all odds, in production. He remembers thinking _never gonna want to eat powdered eggs again._ He remembers the gap-toothed baker and his plump wife who kept urging them _eat, eat_.

“I like egg salad,” he murmurs, surprised.

“Cool,” Spider-Man says, and Bucky is aware this is some kind of deal, though he’s not clear on the terms. The kid zips the backpack up, slings it, and starts going up the side of the building. “Oh, hey, where’s your place?”

“Six blocks east. Tawny Towers.” He says it without thinking, just says it. Like it's okay for someone to know this about him. To know where he sleeps, where he is collecting the things he likes. Even though he is compromised. Even though he is overdue for cryo. Even though they will have to wipe him a half a dozen times to take away everything that's in his head. He is surprised to find he's not afraid of it. He realizes that he doesn't even know what this kid looks like, but he trusts him, and the sandwich is the first kindness anyone has done this body in almost a century. The knowledge of it swells in his chest like a balloon, it hurts, it threatens to push him apart.

“Same bat time, your bat place!” Spider-Man calls. Bucky nods.

“Okay," he whispers, holding the sandwich gently in both hands. "Sure, yeah. Okay.”


	11. Black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings have been updated, please take care.
> 
>  
> 
> Many thanks to @secretlytodream for helping me pick the best, most sinister Russian reset word in the whole wide world.

Clint wakes with a jolt. Unfamiliar room. Unfamiliar bed. It takes him a second. He thinks, _God damn it Clinton Francis Barton have you been kidnapped again?_ before he remembers that he and Natasha picked up the box of stuff from his place and rolled on down to hers and he crashed in the spare bedroom there.

He sits up yawning and fumbles around on the floor till he gets his boxers untangled from his jeans and his shirt right-side-out. He gets dressed, ignores the hearing aids on the bedside table, and goes out to get some breakfast.

Natasha’s already up. She’s wearing a long shirt and leggings, seated on her office chair, slowly chewing her way through a bowl of cereal as she goes through the box of stuff Clint stole from Pierce’s house. Clint’s heart _boom boom booms_ a little at the sight of her. He can’t help it. He’s never going to not be in love with her.

Natasha glances over her shoulder at him and smiles and Clint’s heart keeps right on _boom boom booming_ because that look is just for him.

 _You were tired,_ she signs. She knows him well enough to know he won’t have his hearing aids in so early in the morning.

 _Yeah_ , he signs back. _Really tired._

_Better?_

He nods and points at the stuff on the desk. _Anything important?_

She shrugs. She’s been reading one of the pages of Cyrillic text. He can see her fine pencil notation still in the margin and under the heading _Resetting the Asset_ and a single transliterated word: _pochemuchka_

He moves closer to get a look.

 _Codes?_ he asks.

She nods. _One-time codes. No meaning in English, so I guess Hydra kept them when they acquired the Asset. No reason to change them_. _But I’m not sure what they’re for, except resetting. And that could mean anything._

She turns over the page. There’s a photograph under that. It’s an image of Bucky Barnes, dead-eyed, staring. The image could have been a police John Doe photo, except that he’s sitting up. Clint happens to know that image is the second of a set of two photos. In the previous picture Barnes’s expression isn’t this sort of placid incomprehension, it’s a sort of helpless horror. He swallows. He’s been in the hands of bad guys before, but never like that.

Natasha touches his arm and he glances at her. _Sam said they think they found where he’s been living._

He nods. _Bringing him in?_

Natasha shrugs. She taps the thumb drive lying among the photographs and papers. _What’s this?_

He sighs. It’s with an audio file entitled, “ _Asset, post-op June 4 1994”_ that, as far as Clint has heard of it, and he didn’t listen all that much, it is mostly the sound of a man gasping and vomiting, with a voiceover explaining that a sub dermal implant of atropine ruptured on mission and an operation was required to remove the leaking package.

 _Medical stuff,_ he signs.

She nods and sets it in the stack of looked-through items. Then she turns over a photograph. There are a selection of photos, some grainy and old, some glossy and new. This one’s a new one. It’s… one of the ugly ones.

After he heard Natasha had been sent to the hospital with a bullet wound in her shoulder, Clint had figured he was going to make it a priority to put an arrow in the Winter Soldier’s eye. But since he’s seen the pictures, he’s adjusted how he feels about that. Would have been nice to put an end to Pierce, though. Real nice. He shakes his head and his breath hisses out between his teeth.

Natasha looks up at him. _You’ve seen torture before._

Clint shakes his head. _Never seen anybody keep pictures of it for their own personal spank bank._ Clint signs. _Fuck Pierce. Fuck that guy._

She regards him for a moment. _This,_ she signs, and then taps the image, _is standard. I don't know about Hydra, but anybody who’s been in the hands of Department X has been raped. They do it with the other things to keep the mind from being present. To get you to —_ she scrambles her fingers and says ‘dissociate’. He nods. — _so they can keep the mind and body apart. It’s like sleep deprivation and starvation. It's standard._

Clint’s jaw gets tight, his forehead creases. Natasha shuts her mouth. Clint opens his.

“Don’t,” she says.

Clint closes his mouth and then opens it again.

“I mean it, Barton.”

“Okay,” he says. He takes a long, deep breath. His hands are in fists. “Okay,” he says again. He makes his fingers relax so he can sign, _Got any coffee in this place?_

Natasha nods. There’s too much ease in her shoulders, too much softness in her jaw. It’s a dangerous facade. Like a thin layer of ice over a lake. There are some things Natasha is never going to let him give to her, and one of those things is sympathy for what she's suffered in the past. It’ll draw attention to the wounds she’s been trying hard to show she doesn’t have. He goes into the kitchen and then sticks his head back out and looks at her.

 _Really?_ He signs. _You have a coffee press?_ _Are you secretly from the past like Cap?_

 _Barton,_ she signs back.

_I’m going to get you a brewer for your birthday._

She rolls her eyes at him and it eases some of the tension in his chest. If she can be irritated with him, she’s not bleeding out. Good.

 _It's not a present for me if it's for you,_ she signs.

He grins. _The present is 10% fewer complaints._

Her eyebrows go up. _What will you do with all that free time?_

He laughs and ducks back into the kitchen. He makes the coffee strong and sweet, and takes the first cup to her.


	12. Cruel jokes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friends, if what you want is a sweet reunion with things not hurting and not on fire, now might be a good time to step out.

 

Steve goes up the last flight of stairs. It’s an old building and narrow, and there aren’t many rooms to a floor. He starts on the left hand side and works his way down the little hallway and around. The warped floor groans under his feet, sending up puffs of dust and spores of mildew and the fungus that’s started to sprout from the tattered carpet. 

Steve steps quietly. None of the doors are locked and he feels a strange sort of reverence for the place, abandoned though it might be. When he pushes his way into the unlit apartments he can see signs of the people who once lived here. Plastic plates left in a rusting sink in one apartment, another with a broken window patched by a tattered wasp’s nest. The furnishings that were too heavy to carry down four flights of stairs remained behind. Couches that are stained and sagging. Tables with mismatched chairs. In one suite, there’s a bed with a huge heavy frame in the middle of the living room, and pushed up against it a table and chair set, an old easy chair, and three doors that have been taken off their hinges. 

The next suite over is empty. Weirdly empty. The bathroom has no door. The closet in the entryway is likewise stripped. He steps inside and looks. It’s a bachelor suite, the kitchen and the living space all a single room. On the mottled carpet there is a heap of material, a makeshift bed. Near it, newspapers are laid out with care. He recognizes the _Bugle_ ’s multi-page spread about the fall of SHIELD, the pages all carefully placed in sequence across the floor. A special edition of _Time_ magazine with Steve’s face on the cover. A pamphlet from the Smithsonian exhibit. Near all that there’s a dark heap of fabric and fasteners. He goes over to it, squats down and unravels it. 

It’s the TAC vest Bucky was wearing on the helicarrier. The black fabric is stained white with sweat-salt at the back of the neck and the armpits. It’s dry, but the straps are crusty and the whole thing stinks like the Potomac. Just past that, Steve sees the plastic and inserts from a box of donuts, discarded fast-food wrappers bunched up and thrown. On the wall near the window there’s a dried smear of something that might be mud or blood. 

“Oh God,” he whispers, not sure if he’s praying or cursing, “Bucky.”

He turns to the makeshift bed, takes the greasy blanket and pulls it back. Beneath there are three couch cushions aligned to make a mattress. The handle of a knife with a matte black blade peaks out from under one of the cushions. Steve puts his hand on the bed. The fabric is stiff with dirt, but that doesn’t matter. It’s warm. That’s not his imagination. It really is still warm. Just a little.

He sits down on the floor and takes out his phone. He dials in a daze. “This is the place, Sam,” he whispers, throat clenching up. “He’s not here. But it’s his place.”

“I’m gonna call the back up team and tell them,” Sam says. “What’s the location?”

“The apartment building about halfway down the block. Tawny Towers or something. Fourth floor. I’m gonna wait for him.”

“Okay. Good. I’m on my way. What do you need?”

“Need?” Steve asks, dazed.

“What’s he going to need?”

Steve looks around at the place. The things Bucky is going to need are innumerable and incalculable. He can’t even begin to imagine what Bucky will need most.

“Has he got electricity?” 

Steve gets up and tries the light. Nothing. “Uh, no,” he says. “No light. Maybe no heat.”

“Hot food,” Sam says. “There’s a diner at the end of the street. I’ll bring something up. You make sure you tell him I’m coming. I do _not_ want to surprise that guy.”

Steve nods at the phone. “Yeah, okay Sam. I will.” He closes his eyes for a moment, imagining telling Bucky anything, anything at all. _I’m sorry. I missed you. Please let me help you._ He presses his hand against his forehead. _It’s the future, Buck._ _It’s the future. We made it._

 

*

It takes him a long time to get back to the neighbourhood he’s been staying in. It’s almost sun-up, and it’s getting light enough that the street lamps are starting to flicker a bit. The sigh of traffic is starting up, and someone’s morning alarm is going off like a distant air raid siren.

The street should be more or less empty, but as he gets close to his place he realizes there’s a shape standing in the shadows between the Housing Works and the shuttered shops. Not hiding, just standing, watching, waiting. A jolt of recognition goes through Bucky’s body.

It’s the dark-haired man with the _better you than me_ expression _._ Bucky knows him. Remembers him from the vault. From missions. He seeks for the name and his brain relinquishes it. _Rumlow._ High level. Handler. Has used the Asset before. Knows codes. Can deploy packages. Fast. Smart. Cruel.

Rumlow looks worse for wear today. His once-pale skin has been scarred a mottled red in places, and the scruff on his jaw is uneven in patches, as if he’s been burned. Bucky feels a fierce sort of satisfaction at the thought, a longing to add to that, layer pain on pain. The plates in his arm hum softly. He lets the hand close into the fist it wants to be.

“Well well well, good morning, Asset,” Rumlow calls. He shifts, and for an instant Bucky thinks he’s bringing a gun up, but it’s not a gun, it’s a paper coffee cup. Rumlow flashes teeth in something like a smile, the expression is stomach-twisting, sickening, like he knows something about Bucky that Bucky doesn’t. Like whatever it is, it’s _funny_.

“I’m not coming in,” Bucky says. He sounds sulky and childlike.

Rumlow’s grin gets bigger. “Not yet,” he says. He sips his coffee and then grins again. “But you will. You remember the Anolean PM’s daughter? Ten years old, hair in pigtails?”

 _No,_ he tells his mind. _For fuck’s sake NO._

But he remembers. Can’t stop himself. The girl with her thick, dark hair. She was bouncing up and down. Erratic movements. Excited children are so fucking hard to kill at a distance. But the bullet passed through her neck, struck the house behind. A jet of blood from the torn artery. The father screaming. There was a bullet for him too, but the Winter Soldier had been told to wait for one minute, then kill the father. It felt, that second shot, almost like mercy.

“You remember?” Rumlow asks. “You begged for the chair. You begged and begged and begged.”

He did. Too long out of cryo. Like realizing the dream is actually a nightmare, a slow awakening of horror, the memories breaking through like floodwater. _Take it away. Please, anything, just take it away_.

The plates in his arm click and whirr.

“You know, Steve and me are old friends. Worked together a long time.”

 _Steve. Hydra. Asset._ He holds his breath.

“You must have known he’d find you eventually. I sure did.”

Rumlow shakes the coffee cup by his ear and frowns at it. Then he looks at Bucky again. “Don’t look so worried. When you’re done, I’ll put you in the chair if you ask nice.”

He drops the coffee cup at his feet and starts walking, hangs a left, and vanishes from sight.

Bucky stands a long moment on the street, waiting for more. Waiting for gunshots, or tranq darts, or for one of the packages in his chest or his thigh to rupture. Nothing happens. Nothing at all. That’s worse, worse, _worse_.

He’s breathing hard, panting, left hand locked in a hammerhead of a fist, head buzzing, when he gets to the top of the stairs. He raises his head and sees the door to his place is standing open, and he hears a voice he knows echoing softly in the dark.

… _fourth floor. I’m gonna wait for him. Need? Uh. No.…_

Steve’s voice. Steve’s voice talking to somebody on a phone. Maybe Rumlow. It crushes him like a weight.

It’s a cruel fucking joke. Like being drafted into the army and then lying to make it sound like you chose it, because you don’t want him to know how afraid you are. Like knowing you’re more likely to catch a bullet with your face than you are to ever tell him that you love him. It’s a cruel fucking joke, like telling yourself you’re glad the dame with the red dress has eyes for him, telling yourself it’s what he deserves, oughtta be happy, hating yourself when you’re not. It’s a cruel fucking joke. Like falling a million feet from a moving train, and not dying when you hit the ground.

He presses his forehead hard into the wall, like the pain might make everything else go away. Steve is there, nothing but a cheap door between the two of them, and Bucky’s hand’s still hurting, he’s exhausted, hasn’t got the codes to reset Steve, and if Steve’s orders are kill, the fight will be to the death. He does not want to live the helicarrier again. He doesn’t not want to fight Steve. He does not want to kill Steve. Rumlow is right; he would beg for the chair if he did. He would beg and beg and beg until they took it all away.

 _The chair_.

The thought trickles in like ice-water. He cannot leave Steve in their hands. And there is a way to reset without using the codes. It’s temporary, but it does work. At least for a little while. Sometimes emptiness is better than orders. Sometimes silence is better than the screaming of the mind. And Hydra had bases all over the world. Two in New York. One with a chair. If he runs, Steve will chase him.


	13. Many Meetings

The door sighs open. It’s a tiny noise; Without the serum he would never have been able to hear it. He looks up. Bucky is framed in the slowly widening doorway. Jeans, t-shirt, heavy blue jacket. Jaw dark with two weeks worth of beard. Hair hacked short, uneven. Both hands upraised, no weapons, but not surrendering. His eyes. They _see_ Steve. It is not like the helicarrier. It stops the thing he tries to say.

He hears Bucky swallow and sees his shoulders shift to accommodate more oxygen. He knows the instant before it happens. “ _Wait!_ ” he shouts but Bucky’s gone, vaulting down the stairs, and Steve is shouting his name, running after him, slipping on the moldy carpet, scrabbling with his phone as Bucky vaults over the rail and lands with a crash in the foyer and Steve jumps down after him just as Sam answers his phone.

“He’s running,” Steve says, bursting through the front door after Bucky just in time to get the sun right in his eyes. “ _Fuck,_ ” he gasps, then he shouts, “ _Bucky!_ ” and catches a glimpse of shadow crossing the sunshine. Of course Bucky would run into the sun. “Going east, on foot,” he shouts into the phone, “I’m in pursuit.”

“Shit, think about his. Something's not right.”

“I can catch him, Sam.”

“Steve, this smells like a trap.”

“I’m _not_ losing him again. _I’m not losing him again._ ”

The road curves. The streaming sunshine breaks. He can see Bucky running between parked cars, up the curb, between two buildings.

“Steve," Sam shouts, "Listen to me—”

He should listen. Sam's smart, he's outside looking in. He's going to tell Steve to stop chasing Bucky, that Bucky will come back, and he's probably right. Steve doesn't _care._ He throws his phone and sees from the corner of his eye how it blows into fragments and dust in the road. Then he puts his head down and pelts after Bucky.

*

“Falcon,” Natasha says into her phone.

“Hi Natasha. Things are fucked,” he answers. She hears him sigh and say, _Aw, shit, c’mon Steve, really?_ and the clatter of broken plastic.

Natasha looks at Clint. He abandoned the driver’s uniform, but kept the cap. He glances back at her. His mouth twitches down. “Steve took off, didn’t he?” he asks.

“I heard that,” Sam says, “and the answer is yes. I’m gonna get a super-soldier sized kiddie backpack for that guy. The ones with the leashes.”

“What about the Soldier?” Natasha asks.

“Steve said he showed up and then he ran.”

Clint pilots the car around the corner and they both get a face-full of sunshine, right in the eyes. Clint grins and taps the brim of his hat. He slows the car and they coast into a _loadings zone only_ space. The two of them pile out.

“You guys here? Good. Fourth floor. It’s a shithole.”

Natasha glances at the building. There's a shape out of place on the roof, but it's still, nothing reflective. Not a sniper. The building's slated for demolition; it could just be a broken piece of roofing. The front of the building is small and old and the front door is sagging off its hinges like a pair of super soldiers have just gone running through it. She and Clint head on inside, where the foyer is partly collapsed, then up the stairs, past a torn piece of carpet and a scuff of mud on the balustrade that tells her Steve was in too big a hurry to just take the stairs.

Sam Wilson is standing in the doorway of one of the suites. “And when I told Steve him it smelled like a trap to me, what does Elderly McNoPlan PainInTheAss Esquire do? He destroys his damn phone.” Sam's scowling.

Natasha nods at him. “You know where he was going?” she asks.

“East,” Sam says, flapping one hand vaguely in that direction. “For whatever _that’s_ worth.” 

“What’s east of here?” Clint asks.

“Not much. A few more streets like this, ESU’s about a half a dozen blocks that way.”

“Man,” Clint says softly, “I never thought he’d run. Fight, sure. But run?”

Natasha nods. She follows Sam into the apartment, and Clint trails behind. The place is bare, stripped. She finds herself nodding approval. No doors. No place for an intruder to hide. Papers and pamphlets and a magazine by the makeshift bed. A knife under the mattress. Garbage on the floor under the broken window; anyone sneaking in would step on it and rouse a sleeper. On the far side of the little room are the jumbled remains of a TAC vest, abandoned, filthy. “He’s been here for a little while,” she murmurs.

“Yeah,” Sam agrees. “But this, I don’t know, it just—”

There’s a soft noise, a _thppp_ sound, like something rapidly unspooling. Sam meets Natasha’s eyes and she knows he's heard it, but he goes on in the same tone, at the same pace, like he didn’t hear a thing. “I dunno, but it rubs me the wrong way, this whole thing.”

She smiles. Sam isn’t a spy, but he has good instincts. She nods at the broken window and Clint starts toward it, moving silent.

“Me too,” she says. “Steve’s bad about taking off like that. You think somebody was banking on it?”

Clint flattens himself beside the window. He looks up.

“Could be,” Sam says, watching Clint as he coils like a spring. He lunges upward. And misses.

“What the _fuck?_ ” Clint says, then snarls, “All right, you cheeky motherfucker,” and starts climbing out the window. Someone outside yelps. Someone says _Hey, easy, I’m one of the good guys!_ and an instant later, Clint returns with…

With…

She blinks. She’s seen a lot of costumes in her time, but nothing that looked quite so similar to images she's seen of Clint's circus youth.

“What. The hell. Are you supposed to be?” Sam asks.

The lanky guy in the red and blue shrugs and points to the emblem on his chest. “Spider-Man?”

Natasha thinks it was a question. “Spider-Man?” she asks. “The one the _Bugle_ ’s always after?”

“Yeah, they hate me.” He laughs a little and turns his glossy mask-eyes on Sam. “Hey, you’re Falcon right?” he asks. “Man, there was a great thing on you and Colonel Rhodes and the future of flight combat in the… uh… hey. Are you guys friends of Bluejay? Where is Bluejay anyway?”

“Bluejay?” Clint echoes.

“Bluejay. You know." Spider-Man does a little shrug-dance on the spot. "Dark haired? Do-gooder guy? Metal arm? Kinda… on hard times maybe?”

“Metal arm?” Sam says just as Clint says,

“Wait, do-gooder?”

“Explain,” Natasha says.

“I’ve been working with him off and on. He’s a big help. Things have been… weird down here lately. Told me he lived here. This is the only occupied suite. Isn’t it? I mean, it looked like it. Oh god, I really didn’t mean to break in.”

Natasha holds up one hand and tries hard not to use it to rub her temples. “Are you honestly telling me you have been supering with the Winter Soldier?”

Spider-Man laughs a fast, brittle _ah ha ha ha ha ha_ and then falls silent when nobody joins in. "Oh god, are you…? You _are_ serious. Uh.” He seems stunned. "Uh. I guess. Maybe. I didn't really. I mean, maybe the metal arm should have been a giveaway but I thought the Winter Soldier was a… holy jeeze."

“We need to know what you know about him,” Natasha says. The kid's awkward, what he wants is to be accepted. She holds out her hand. “Black Widow,” she says. Spider-Man shakes her hand with unfeigned enthusiasm.

“Finally,” he whispers. “I _finally_ get to meet you. Oh my god. I _love_ your name. I wanted something like it when I… but… “the Recluse”? That just doesn’t have the same ring. So I went with Spider-Man.”

She nods. “Good choice. Tell me what the Winter Soldier wanted.”

Spider-Man rubs at his forehead. “Okay, uh. He… uh. God. Met him a couple days ago. He helped me out with a… there are these human experiments going on. Poisonous animals getting grafted into people. Seems like a mad scientist thing. He helped me out with one and we talked and I gave him some tips on supering and then, uh, he was looking for me. Looking for, oh, looking for information on Steve Rogers. He was really worried about him.”

Natasha holds herself very still. “What did he want to know?”

“Where he was. And something about codes? Yeah. Codes. I told him I’d keep an ear to the ground.”

“Codes?” Sam asks.

Natasha frowns. "That doesn't make any sense."

Clint glances at her. “If Steve’s chasing him…”

She looks at Clint. “No. None of that makes any sense. The Winter Soldier does not run from anything,” she says. “He must be running _to_ something.”

“I knew it,” Sam says, frowning and nodding. “And I damn well told him so.”

“No, I'm telling you, Bluej-- uh -- he's really not a bad guy." Sam scowls at him, but Spider-Man doesn't seem to notice. "Look, I was coming to him for help. There's a lab in ESU with about six people on operating tables or in cages. I can’t get them all out by myself, and I'm not leaving them there." 

Both Sam and Clint look at Natasha. Sam looks curious, but Clint looks pained. She licks her lips. "This lab, you were in it?"

"Yeah." Spider-Man nods.

"Cages?"

"Yeah."

"Heavy doors?"

"The place is like a submarine," Spider-Man agrees.

"Do you think it could it hold Captain America?" she asks.

"Oh man," Spider-Man whispers. "Yeah, I think it totally could."


	14. 3 or 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is horrible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last I have found it! The chair idea came from [Stoatsandwich on Tumblr.](http://stoatsandwich.tumblr.com/post/109599099446/after-the-helicarrier-bucky-decides-that-steve-is) Diabolical and wonderful.

 

Steve is following him. Good. Good. The trouble is, Steve is fed, and fit, and in this body he’s faster than Bucky. Faster, and there are still blocks and blocks to go. But Bucky knows the neighbourhood. He’s been here for over a week now. He’s done his own recon and traversed alleys, alone and with Spider-Man. He sprints across streets starting to be filled with traffic. People freeze or scatter. They stand and stare after him and he can hear Steve yelling for people to move and shouting his name. He makes it to the campus well ahead of Steve.

It’s still early enough that the campus is quiet, the huge green quad is hazy with mist and the lights of the library glow faintly. Nestled in a grove of big old trees there’s a long, low MacIntyre building. Mostly brick. He remembers coming here when the ground was mud studded with conifer saplings, and the bricks were the red of ox-blood leather. Now the bricks are darkened to the colour of a scab, and the trees half-cover the facade, and the building lies low on the landscape. But Bucky knows this isn’t the entirety of the building; Unless you’d been into the place you’d never know a long subterranean complex lies under it.

It’s never too early for students at midterm time. The first foyer is full of students who gawp as he runs between them. The shouts of anger turn to surprise in his wake. Steve’s in the building now. The students are slowing him down.

The next door requires a keycard. Or a metal fist. He uses what he has, pushes through the door and into a stairwell that goes down and opens into the first of the secure areas, a huge work space, a lab framed on all sides by benches, and a couple key-card doors on the far side. There are two people in the space, moving toward one of the doors. He expects Hydra agents. He expects police. He expects Rumlow.

He gets Jada West.

Her, and the guy who was in Spider-Man’s web. That guy, it turns out, has a long snake-tongue hanging out of his mouth. Jada meets his eyes and grins, delighted.

“Holy shit, never thought I’d see you again,” she whispers. She comes over to him. “You here to get them out?”

“Did Spider-Man come with you?” the snake-guy asks.

Bucky shakes his head. “Different mission,” he says. He wants to run for the door, he knows Steve is coming. But. “You came back to get them out,” he says. She nods.

“Can’t help what they did to me,” she says, “but I can save the others.”

He nods. “You need a mask and a name,” he says. He reaches into his jacket and, grabs the ball of cloth from the interior pocket and stuffs it into her hand. “Get out as fast as you can.”

She grins a toothy grin, slaps the snake-guy’s shoulder, and they slip through the door.

Bucky shoves the other door open. Beyond it’s a hallway, five doors, two on either side and one at the end. He remembers with sudden force that he’s had nightmares of this place. He wants to turn and run, there’s only one exit and he knows agents and security and tactical teams are coming. There’s no way out now; not unless there’s two of them fighting their way out together.

He smashes the lock on the last door and waits. He does not want to go in until he has to.

Steve appears, and stops on the threshold. He’s breathing hard, like Bucky, but he’s not winded. Alarms wail somewhere deep in the building. He knows there’s supposed to be a four minute response time from anywhere in the city when a facility like this is breeched. Whatever Jada is doing might buy him some time, but he can’t count on it. He has to work fast.

Steve’s looking at him with a strange look. Gone is his expression of hurt desperation, now his mouth is a thin line, and he looks at Bucky like Bucky is a dog that might bite.

“I won’t chase you any more, Buck,” Steve says. His voice is loud in a hallway filled only with the buzzing of cheap lights and the distant sound of sirens.

“Not running any more,” Bucky answers. His voice is low and soft, a whisper. He can’t make noise the way Steve can. Not so close to the chair. “No way out.”

Bucky pushes open the door with his fingers, and steps aside. He doesn’t need to see the contents of the room to be able to map them in his mind.

Concrete room. Windowless. Green paint on the bottom, grey on the top, split at the four-foot mark. Chair, back and centre. Cryo tank, back and left, in the corner. Two workbenches of equipment to repair and upgrade the arm. Once stationary computer console. One temperature controlled cabinet where medical materials are kept. One tray covered in a white cloth that hides a small tranquilizer gun loaded with M99.

The smell of shorted wiring, of dust and the sweat soaked into the chair washes over him. He doesn’t want to go into the room. His heart speeds up, like if it can just beat hard enough he won’t carry it in there. He doesn’t want to do this. Not to Steve. He doesn’t want to believe Rumlow. He doesn’t want to believe the news. The lady at the diner. The graffiti on the street. He has to check. He has to be sure.

“You got orders to kill me?” he asks.

Steve comes forward, Bucky steps back. Into the room. Trapping himself. In with the chair, in with the tank. In with the drugs and the pain and the memory of his own voice echoing back at him _no please please don’t put me in please._

“No,” Steve say. “No. I want you to come _home_. I’m going to bring you in.”

Recovery mission. Good, that gives him options. Steve won’t try to kill him, even if the opportunity presents itself. There’s probably three minutes till tactical teams arrive. That thought niggles at him. There shouldn’t just be tactical teams to worry about. There should have been guards, security guards and Hydra agents too. It shouldn’t have been so easy to get in here. Even if Jada had cleared the way for him.

But it doesn’t matter, not really. They’re both trapped and he’s not leaving Steve, not leaving him to be _programmed_ and _ordered_ and _used_ the way that Bucky has been. He’s got to get Steve into the chair. Now.

“I’m going to bring you in,” Steve says again, softly. He’s close now, close to the little room, and Bucky feels crowded inside. It always felt so crowded inside. Every one of these rooms is small, every one of them is windowless, every one of them is concrete and there’s no way out except submission and he _can’t_ any more and that’s not what Steve deserves.

“Bucky, listen to me. I know… I know you suffered. I know you don’t know who to trust. I promise you: Everything’s going to be okay.”

Bucky lets his hand touch the cloth cover of the medical tray. Finds the shape of the tranq gun under it.

Steve comes to the door of the chamber. His eyes go from the tank to the chair and his mouth opens a fraction, the air coming out of him. Bucky’s chest clenches up. There’s such a pained look on Steve’s face. He knows the chair. He knows what it’s for. He’s probably been in it before. They had to wipe Bucky over and over again to get his mind to stop fighting back. God alone knows how much time Rogers has spent in it.

“I’m gonna fix it, Stevie,” Bucky whispers. “I’m gonna get the code and reset you, just like you did for me. But I don’t have the codes yet. So we gotta do it this way for now.”

He draws and shoots. Midline. Perfect. Steve is not wearing armour.

Steve staggers back a step, stunned, blinking. He pulls the little quill out of his chest. “What?” he asks. “Bucky what are you…?” The second shot puts him out.

Bucky has moved more bodies than he can remember. It is not difficult to heave Steve’s bulk up into place on the chair, to secure him in place. The difficulty is keeping his own heart-rate and breathing from overwhelming him. And he’s never been on this side of a wipe before.

The chair is old, worn in places. The mouth guard is badly chewed. The computer attached to the chair has a keypad and two of the buttons on the pad are worn, the 3 and the 7. Bucky doesn’t know which one to use. He doesn’t know. Not enough time. Tactical teams in three minutes, maybe two. He’s lost track. And Steve’s starting to move.

“Bucky,” Steve slurs, head coming up a little. “Don’t.”

He wants to vomit. His world is narrowing to a pinpoint. Voices in the corridor. Shouting. Jada’s jailbreak, or the tactical team. Either way, someone’s coming. This was always too risky. If they get out of this it’ll be a miracle. It’ll be easier with two of them fighting together. It’ll be _possible_ with Steve.

He goes to the door and heaves it closed. The boom shakes him. He stands for a moment, panting, then turns the lock and comes back to the chair.

“Pal, listen to me.” He puts his hands on Steve’s warm face. “If you know your reset code now’s the time to tell me.”

“Buck _don’t_. Bucky, don't do this. You’re my friend.”

Bucky laughs softly. “Yeah, pal,” he whispers. “Yeah, that’s mine. I’m sorry, Stevie. I’m so fucking sorry. But after this, I’ll find it, and I’ll reset you.”

Steve’s blue eyes go wide. “No, Bucky I’m not…” his voice is getting stronger. _He’s_ getting stronger. “Oh God, Bucky, stop. I’m not Hydra.” The M99 puts Bucky out and puts him out hard, but it’s not enough to keep Steve down. The restraints aren’t going to hold. He needs to do this _now._

He turns away, looks at the key pad. It’s 3 or it’s 7. He was never in a state of mind to notice something like that, and probably wouldn’t remember if he ever did. _Start with 3,_ he tells himself. _Do it again if it doesn’t work._

“Bucky!” Steve is heaving against the restraints. “Bucky, listen to me, _listen to me,_ _I’m not Hydra!”_

Something heavy crashes outside. Something booms against the chamber door. Tactical team’s here. Time’s up.

“Bucky _—_ ”

He punches the 7 and covers his ears until Steve stops screaming.


	15. Meeting Dragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely messages you guys!  
> (I'm going to try to get two updates in tonight!)

 

“Do _not_ get any of that web crap on the seats,” Clint says as he starts the ignition. “I rented this thing under my real name.”

“And they actually rented to you?” Sam asks. “Knowing who you were?”

Clint grins at him. “Dumb, huh?”

Natasha shades her eyes until they reach the campus. The roads are quiet and it doesn't take long.

“Quickest way to the building?” Clint asks.

“Uh.” Spider-Man has pulled his mask up so his mouth is visible. He’s white. Young enough that his the stubble on his jaw is patchy and fairly fine. Smart enough to notice Clint’s hearing aids. Interested in communicating. Natasha files all of that away for later. “The lab is in the McIntyre building, so, um, a left here I think and then there’s a parking lot. Anybody got change?”

 _Law-abiding,_ she adds to the mental tally. _Disgustingly law-abiding._ _Steve will love him._

Sam sits forward and taps Clint on the shoulder. “Right across the green,” he says and points dead ahead. He’s got his phone out, and a map pulled up.

Clint gets the big old town car to hop the curb and plough toward the quad. Sod sprays up in chunks behind them. Natasha has to work hard not to giggle. Clint glances at her and his grin gets even bigger. The vandal.

“I thought you said this was a rental,” Spider-Man yelps.

“C’mon,” Clint hollers over his shoulder while the engine strains and the rear end of the car goes slipping around on the sod, “they’re not going to look under the car when I take it back. As long as I don’t knock off the oil pan or the exhaust we’re golden.”

Clint fishtails the car between two buildings and they emerge onto a mostly deserted quad. Mostly deserted. Except for a number of ESU campus vehicles, a dozen or so students holding books and backpacks, and a number of disgruntled looking security guards standing in front of a low brick building toward which the car is roaring and slipping.

“You can always tell where Cap is,” Natasha says.

"Yep," Clint agrees, and points the car more or less toward the crowd. The students step out of the way. Campus security closes in. They move together like a unit, making line between the oncoming car and the door.

“Those guys aren’t campus security,” Sam says.

“They do look a little too military, don't they?" She agrees. She looks at Clint. “You like bowling?” as if she doesn't know the answer.

“C'mon Nat, it’s a rental.”

She shrugs and shakes her bracelets free of her sleeves and checks the Stings. “You know,” she says, looking at Clint. “They’re _totally_ going to look under the car after they google your name. I hope you didn’t pay with cash.” She happens to know that Clinton Francis Barton hasn't been able to get a credit card since he spent four thousand dollars on pizza by using a wifi-connected fridge magnet once when kidnapped. As far as causing a financial anomaly Jarvis would notice, it worked. Not so good for his credit, though, since he _did_ place all those orders. He _definitely_ paid for the car in cash.

Clint frowns. She waits.

"Aw, hell," Clint says and floors it. The goons scatter.

 

 

They abandon the car half-in and half-out of the building. Inside alarms wail and a haze of exhaust drifts, and somewhere people are shouting. Natasha starts toward the noise. She pushes through the first door, its keycard lock hanging smashed from a tangle of wires. Beyond are stairs that lead down into a large room framed with black-topped work benches and shelves and full of people. Almost a dozen of them. All of them leaning on one another, some of them staring and stunned, others grim-faced and determined. Bruised, some of them, there’s one guy with a snake-tongue hanging out of his mouth and a livid black eye. She stares. Yes. That’s definitely a snake tongue.

There’s a woman about her age shouting orders, _Yi, go give her a hand up. Alright, we got everybody? Because we are getting the fuck out of—_

A few people point. the woman stops talking and turns. She’s wearing fatigues that are badly in need of laundering. The dark skin of her forehead glitters a little with sweat. And she’s wearing a harlequin mask.

She points at them. “I’ll give you ten seconds to get the fuck out of our way,” she says. Her mouth is all misshapen, her teeth don’t seem to fit. She smiles suddenly, and that's even more alarming. “Spider-Man,” she says. “I heard you weren’t coming.”

“And I thought you were in recovery.” Spider-Man comes forward. He’s pulled down his mask again.

“Couldn’t leave people here,” the woman says, gesturing. “You come to help?”

“Yeah,” Spider-Man tells her. “Uh. Is that Bluejay’s mask?”

Her grin gets bigger. “He said I need a mask and a name and to get the hell out of here quick. So it’s this, and the name’s Dragon, and we could use a hand.”

 


	16. Like falling again

Bucky takes his hands off his ears. There’s another boom at the door. A ram, maybe, or some kind of low-level charge. He ignores it, turns back to the chair. Steve’s lying still, not struggling any more, not screaming. Bucky leans down.

Steve’s eyes open slowly. “Hey,” Bucky whispers. “Stevie, you with me?”

Steve’s eyes slide over him and fix in space somewhere just over Bucky’s shoulder.

He remembers the emptiness, the disorientation, a distant part of his mind panicking, knowing something happened and not knowing what. He thinks of what he knows. _Asset_ , they would call him, and then say, _Status report._

He remembers searching the faces for some hint of kindness, some indication that he wasn’t going to be hurt, maybe hurt again. He won’t let Steve feel that way. He’s going to tell him everything he needs. Everything to help him fight the orders, whatever it takes to buy more time until Bucky can find the reset code.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he says. His heart’s still beating hard but Steve’s not screaming any more and not struggling and that’s got to mean something, it has to mean it worked and he’s bought time. Steve’s halfway out of Hydra’s grip. “I know it’s… I know it’s awful but I had to. It’s gonna be okay.”

He unbuckles the two nearest straps and free’s Steve’s arm and foot. “We’re gonna have to fight our way out,” he says. Steve’s head turns slightly to the side. Blood trickles out of his mouth. The bite guard. Bucky forgot to give him the bite guard. “Here,” he whispers, “let me see.”

Steve lets Bucky open his mouth. There’s blood on his teeth. He bit his tongue hard enough to draw blood, but his teeth aren’t shattered. More relief.

“Sorry pal. I wasn’t thinking. Guess I was panicking a bit.”

Steve’s mouth moves. “Don’t,” he breathes.

That startles him. It took him minutes to be able to think clear enough to respond to commands after they wiped him. “Don’t what, Stevie?” he asks softly. He leans down so that he’ll fill Steve’s whole field of vision. He cradles Steve’s head in his flesh hand.

“No more,” Steve whispers.

There’s another _boom_ at the door again but this time it ends with a _crack_ as the door frame gives way. The smell of cordite and dust rolls in. Bucky looks.

It’s Rumlow standing in the doorway. He’s alone, one hand to his ear, a rifle slung over his shoulder. “Yeah,” he says into an earpiece. “Cap’s subdued. I’ve got the Asset cornered.” He lowers his hand and smiles at Bucky. It’s that _smile_ again, that same one as before, like this has all been some big joke.

Rumlow comes forward and looks at Steve, then Bucky, and his eyebrows go up. “I knew you were fucked up, man. But putting him in that chair and then nuking him? That’s something special.”

Vicious pleasure surges up in Bucky. “Fuck you,” he snarls. “I did what I had to. You can’t touch him now. He won't even remember the orders you gave."

Rumlow laughs. "I never gave him any orders. Nobody did.”

Bucky shakes his head. Rumlow. Cruel, dangerous, liar.

“That's the big problem with the Captain,” Rumlow adds. “Not super obedient. But the wipe'll probably help with that." Rumlow nods at Bucky. “Couldn’t have done it without you,” he says.

It lands like a blow. Bucky reels back.

“No,” he snarls. “No, Steve was _hunting_ me. He said he was going to bring me in.”

“Yeah.” Rumlow says like they’re talking over the back yard fence. “Sanctimonious bastard has a real hard-on for rehabilitation.”

He feels off balance. He closes his hand on the armrest of the chair and hears the metal squeal. “No,” he says, “You’re his handler. I know you are. You were with him.”

“Knew he’d lead us to you.”

Bucky feels like he can’t get his balance. Like he can’t breathe. “No,” he says again. “No, you’re… I thought, I _thought_ —”

Bucky wouldn’t have. Not hurt Steve. Not _that_. _Not that._ Not for nothing. He thinks about Steve’s whispered words. _No more._

_Oh God._

_“_ You do Hydra’s work, even when we don’t tell you what to do." Rumlow says, shrugging. "That’s how good a job they did on you. Even when you’re AWOL, you’re still ours."

"No," Bucky whispers, then he shouts it, " _No_!"

He can see Steve lying there staring and still. His mind whispers, _God, the way he screamed. Like I used to scream_. _I did that to him. He begged me not to, but I did it anyway._

He can’t breathe, his lungs are filling up with sand, something is smothering him, crushing him, killing him, he’s a wreck, a ruin, a shattered human being, but Steve was golden and perfect and unchanged and now Bucky has torn all that apart, he’s shattered it, ruined it. Now the voice that said _you are my friend_ not because it was a code but because it was _true_ says _no more_. And only that.

He feels like he’s falling again.

He’s done something so

so

stupid

and, oh God

he wishes he could take it back.

There’s a noise in the room. Loud, painful to hear. That noise. It’s coming from him. He’s screaming. He’s falling again. Out of breath before he hits the ground.

Rumlow’s smile gets bigger, bright as the blade of a knife. “Ask,” he says when the screaming runs out.

Bucky stares at him.

He knows.

He knows the only way out is to submit.

He knew that about this room. He knew but he came here anyway. Maybe he is theirs in a way he’ll never shake off. After everything that he has done, maybe it is all that he deserves.

“Ask,” Rumlow says again.

“Put me back in,” Bucky whispers. The words are familiar; a groove worn deep in the record of his mind; a place where the needle gets stuck. “There’s a tank here. There’s a tank here. Please. Put me back in.”


	17. Clean slate

He comes to slowly. He is aware that something happened, that it hurt, and that he doesn’t want it to happen again. When he tries to think about it, the memory fades like a dream before he reaches it.

Someone is saying, _Hey, you with me?_ in a soft and troubled tone.

He opens his eyes. There’s a fluorescent light just behind the speaker’s head, shadowing their face. There’s a crack in the ceiling that runs like a bolt of lightning down the chipped grey paint.

“It’s gonna be okay,” the person leaning over him says.

Good. Good that’s… that’s good. Because something terrible just happened. His body is still thrumming with the panic, stinging like he fell into a wasp nest. His head’s splitting. He’s maybe been clenching his jaw real hard.

“I know it’s… I know it’s awful but I had to.” The guy sounds in earnest. His voice is just this side of breaking. “It’s gonna be okay,” the guy tells him. He feels something fumbling at his wrist and then on his ankle on the same side. Something clatters, metal on metal. A pressure he wasn’t aware of before has suddenly vanished on that side, but it remains on the other.

“We’re gonna have to fight our way out,” the guy tells him.

Okay. They are trapped, him and this guy. They are trapped and they will have to fight their way out. He knows his body knows how to fight. He knows the other guy knows that about him. Maybe knows a lot about him. That would be helpful. That would be good.

He wants to ask what happened. He wants to ask the man why he did whatever it was he did. He opens his mouth to speak, and something warm runs out.

“Here,” the guy whispers. “Let me see.” There’s a pause. Fingers on his chin, gentle, even the cold hand. His mouth opens wider. A pause. “Sorry pal. I wasn’t thinking. Guess I was panicking a bit.”

The guy sits back, close to the keypad, close to where—

He remembers: That thing causes pain.

“Don’t,” he breathes.

“Don’t what, Stevie?” the guy asks softly, leaning in close again. Stevie. Him. _Me._ Something to hold on to.

He looks from the guy to the crack in the wall to the machine beside him. He remembers the shock of it. It made his muscles spasm and cramp, made him scream. He remembers the roaring electricity and the sound of his own voice in his ears. He begged this guy not to do it but he did it anyway. He begged, _Oh God, Bucky stop_. He doesn’t want Bucky to use it on him again.

“No more,” he whispers.

Bucky sits back, his eyes wide and his mouth open as if in a soundless apology. Then there’s a _boom_ and Steve’s aching head is full of a buzzing and it takes a while for it to clear enough for him to realize people are talking. Shouting at one another.

“No.” Bucky’s voice. Not soft any more. Instead it’s agitated, angry. “No, Steve was hunting me. He said he was going to bring me in.”

“Yeah,” the second voice says. His conversational tone is weird and out of place. “Sanctimonious bastard has a real hard-on for rehabilitation.”

_Do I?_

“You’re his handler,” Bucky says. “I know you are. You were with him.”

“Knew he’d lead us to you.”

“No. No, you’re…” Bucky’s voice fragments. There’s a weird noise in the room, a sawing kind of noise. “I thought, I thought—”

“You do Hydra’s work, even when we don’t tell you what to do. That’s how good a job they did on you. Even when you’re AWOL, you’re still ours."

"No. No!"

It rings in the concrete room. Hurts Steve’s aching head. The scream that follows it is worse. It pulls him, hooks him under the navel and nauseates him. He remembers whipping wind and the smell of diesel and gunpowder and the icy tang of snow and that scream, that helpless scream. He remembers what it meant; a sudden emptiness so colossal he couldn’t breathe with it, muscles locked, frozen, something as big as a fist in his throat, afraid that to breathe would be to scream too. It is the sound of everything he never did crashing down on him. It is the sound of regret. Of _alone._ He hates that sound.

“Stop,” Steve whispers. “Stop, _stop_.” But nobody seems to hear.

Steve looks toward Bucky and the man framed in the doorway. Bucky is pale, pale like a dying man, his mismatched hands are up at his head, as if he’s trying to hold his skull in place. He is nearly doubled over with the effort of it.

“Ask,” the stranger’s voice is soft, almost a purr. “Ask,” he says again.

“Put me back in. There’s a tank here,” Bucky straightens up, hands still pressed against his head. “There’s a tank here. Please. Put me back in.” Bucky’s hands come away from his face. They uncurl toward the stranger. “Oh God, _Steve_ , I—”

“Asset,” the stranger snaps. “On task.”

Asset/Bucky, he turns toward Steve. He starts to shake his head back and forth. He’s moaning _no._

“You want me to teach you your manners, Asset?” the stranger shouts. It bothers Steve. It bothers him _a lot_. “Because I will teach you your fucking manners right now.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then, very quietly, Asset/Bucky says, “I am not operational.”

“Damn right you’re not,” the stranger mutters.

And Steve _knows_ something bad is going to happen if he doesn't stop it. He knows they have to fight their way out. He’s got one arm and one leg free. His head is pounding and his whole body is thrumming, and everything is difficult. Like he’s been sick for weeks. Bucky is moving toward the tall, silver tank that stands in the corner of the little room. The one with the window, and the frost on the pipes coiling behind it. Steve doesn't want that. They're supposed to be fighting their way out. He knows that. That's what Bucky _said_. He works his mouth and his throat till he can make a loud sound.

“Bucky,” he says. It’s all he can think to say. His voice is hoarse. Asset/Bucky and the stranger both turn and stare. “Stop.”

The stranger’s eyes widen. He takes a step back and reaches for the rifle slung across his body. But Bucky moves faster.


	18. Love will make us do terrible things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentines Day every one!

Just before she reaches the door to the foyer, Natasha hears it. She heard a booming sound before, and now someone is screaming. The sound is distant but insistent. The noise of an animal in pain. It dies as suddenly as it started. Natasha looks at Dragon. “Are you sure you have everyone?” she asks. Dragon nods.

“Yeah. We cleared that place.” She turns and frowns at the far door.

Natasha looks for Clint and Sam, but they're busy. Clint’s got a slim guy’s arm wrapped over one shoulder and he’s helping him to his feet. Sam’s opened the door and is looking through, gesturing the others forward. And Spider-Man’s keeping the escapees bunched together as if he’s some kind of sheepdog.

There’s another scream. It’s worse, long and loud. It makes her pulse jump; it’s the sound of suffering. It tapers off as the screamer's lungs run out. “Shit," Dragon says. "Bluejay went through there." She starts toward the door but Natasha catches her arm. Dragon looks at her, eyes narrowing behind the mask.

“Finish your mission,” Natasha says. “And let me finish mine.”

Dragon hesitates, then she nods. “Good luck in there,” she says. Natasha turns, and starts toward the screaming.

 

***

 

Up in the foyer, where emergency crews have arrived and a tow truck are working on dislodging the car, Clint stops. He looks at Sam. “Feels like the circus again," he says. Sam frowns at him. "You know, showmanship. Slight of hand. You get people to look where you want them to look so you can trick them."

"You're telling me you feel like this is the old bait-and-switch?” he asks.

Clint nods. "You?"

“Only every minute of the last twelve hours,” Sam says. He sighs. "I tried to tell Steve. Seems crazy, though, to give up a big lab like this. And all the experiments."

"For two super-soldiers? If I was Hydra, I'd pay whatever it cost to get the Winter Soldier back. Getting Steve? That'd be worth a whole hell of a lot more."

Sam sighs. "That's what I was afraid of."

Clint nods. He look around to holler at Nat. She's missing. His heart clenches up.

There are EMTs out front, beyond the car and the tow truck. He passes off the guy leaning on him as fast as he can and then catches Sam’s shoulder. “You see where Nat went?"

Sam shakes his head. He helps his guy down the steps toward the ambulance and hands him off, then turns back to Clint. “Never worked with you before, and I don’t know ASL. Is that going to be a problem for us?” All business. Clint likes this guy.

“You’re a soldier, right? You’ve got NATO hand signs?”

Sam nods.

“Between that and the aids, it’ll be fine.”

Sam glances back at the crowd and the overwhelmed EMTs. “You think we should tell the Spandex Wonder we’re going back in?”

“You mean Spider-Man?” Clint asks. “That guy gets so much bad press. Let him take the credit and have some good press for a change.”

 

 

***

 

 

Bucky turns on the spot, left arm coming up to knock the muzzle of the gun toward the wall, right arm following in an arc, driving his elbow into the side of the stranger's head. The stranger goes back against the wall, and then Bucky’s bulk is in the way, and Steve can’t see him any more.

Steve fumbles with the straps on his wrist and ankle. He’s still not right, fingers numb at the tips, balance screwy. He staggers to his feet. Bucky and the stranger tangle and then come apart. The stranger’s still grinning, but his nose is a bloody mess. He says, "Asset's on the move. Send the team." Bucky raises his metal fist again.

Memories come through in a rush, like someone’s turned on a faucet. He remembers seeing the arm for the first time and realizing it was Bucky. The stranger was there too. _Rumlow._ Maybe they were both captured, him and Bucky. Maybe that's what happened.

“Bucky,” he says. “Bucky, we have to go.”

When Bucky glances at him, Rumlow kicks at his knee. Bucky moves in, both hands shoving Rumlow's chest so that Rumlow goes back against the concrete wall. Rumlow's head connects with a _crack_ and he slumps down into a sitting position. Then Bucky turns to Steve. Blood freckles his face. He’s breathing hard.

"C'mon, we have to go."

“I oughtta kill him, Stevie,” Bucky says. “Shouldn’t leave an enemy alive behind you. Especially not one like him.”

Steve can't argue that, but it bothers him, the idea of killing in cold blood. He shakes his head. "He's got re-enforcements coming," he says. "Doesn't matter if we kill him if more are on the way. We have to go.” He takes Bucky’s hand like they’re kids again, like there’s a street to cross between here and the playground. “Come on.”

 

 

He leads Bucky into the hall and through the door. It’s familiar, this frantic-heartbeat-tense-muscles-hardly-breathing-got-to-get-out-of-here feeling. He’s done this before. He remembers. Bare metal, bad light. A table very like the chair in that room. Someone lying there. Bucky lying there. They reach the are stairs and Bucky pulls open the door. He pushes Steve up first, and Steve remembers this too. He's about to speak, to ask Bucky if it's true and not some dream, when he reaches the top of the stairs, spills into the hallway, and sees someone there.

It's a red-head. The colour of her hair startles him. Two memories come up fast, one is of an enemy and one is of a friend. Both vanish before he can really understand them. He stumbles to a stop and stares at the woman. He has a sick certainty she’s going to tear off her face, transform into a monster. He holds his breath.

“Cap?” she says. Her voice echoes a little in the hallway. She moves. It’s like she’s taking a half step back, but she’s not. She’s moved into a fighting position, not aggressive, defensive. “Steve, you okay?”

“You know me,” Steve says.

Her eyes widen and mouth opens a fraction, then her features smooth out. “Yeah,” she says. She nods. “Yeah we’re friends.”

“Natalia Romanova,” Bucky growls. Steve glances at him. He’s come up to stand beside Steve, head tipped down just a little, glaring at her.

"You know her?"

"I _trained_ her,” he says. His lip curls. “She's Red Room. She’s no one’s friend.”

Steve wants to ask but Bucky's already moving toward her.

He moves fast but Natalia, she’s fast too, and brutal. She’s a match for him. She catches the first two blows, turns a third. There’s a crackle and a flash, and Bucky shouts and jerks back, flesh fingers scrabbling at something that stuck to his metal arm. She comes in with a punch but Bucky sees it and drops to sweep her legs out from under her. She lands on her side and then Bucky’s on top of her, arms pinned under his knees, metal arm working again, metal hand closed around her throat and squeezing.

It comes back to him in a rush. The woman in the car, smiling faintly at him. _Who do you want me to be?_

_How about a friend?_

Not Natalia, _Natasha_.

“No,” Steve whispers. Then he shouts it, “No, Bucky, _stop!_ ”

 

***

 

He and Sam hear Steve shouting. "Not good," Sam says. He starts running. He shoulders through a broken door into a hallway and Clint follows.

It’s the first thing Clint sees: He’s got her. The Winter Soldier has Nat by the throat. Clint's bow is in the god damned car.

“Oh _fuck_ , Nat, _Nat!”_

She looks at him. Her eyes are wide, one eye is red with burst blood vessels, mouth open wide. Everyone is running toward them but none of them are going to be fast enough and Clint is a man who lacks every single virtue but he won’t, he _won’t_ let this happen and he doesn't care what it costs.

“ _Pochemuchka!_ ” Clint yells.

The Winter Soldier jerks back as if Clint had hit him with a stun baton. His eyes go wide. His hand convulses once and he says, “No, I—” and then he slumps sideways.

Steve’s there, Sam with him, heaving Bucky off of Nat. Natasha rolls onto her side and curls up, coughing and retching. Clint runs to her, falling to his knees and sliding the last couple feet, already shouting, “Let me see, let me _see,_ ” and reaching for her.

Her throat is red, burst veins still blossoming with colour where the metal hand gripped, and the whole white of her left eye is bloody. She turns her head and vomits and coughs, but she's breathing. She's breathing. And Clint's heart doesn't need to break.

She stares at him. Like she’s seeing him for the first time. He feels stripped, exposed. There are some things he will never be allowed to give Natasha, and his heart is one of them. He knows that. He’s always known that.

“I know, Nat. I know. I'm sorry. But I had to. I had to. I had to.”

She lets him gather her up and pull her against his chest and hold her tight. Clint realizes he and Natasha are a mirror of Steve and Bucky. Except Bucky is staring sightless like a soldier far too long in a combat zone and when Steve calls his name he doesn’t respond. Sam is crouched down with them, one hand on either side of Bucky's face, looking into his sightless eyes. Somewhere beyond the hallway, there's the sound of automatic gun fire.

"Fuck," Sam says, like that's his final judgement. "We've gotta get the hell out of here. Cap, you got him?"

Steve doesn't answer. He's hanging on to Bucky like he's going to drown without him, eyes as sightless and staring as the Soldier's.

"Steve," Sam says again. "We have to get him and Natasha to a hospital. You have to carry him. Now."

"Yeah," Steve whispers. He gets up, holds Bucky like a bride, head cradled against his chest.

"Oh God, Clint," Natasha whispers. "Look what you've done."


	19. Gonna need a bigger building

Nat can walk, but she’s still shaking and coughing. Sam’s not hurt at all. Good. Clint catches his eye. “What the hell is wrong with Steve?” he whispers.

Sam shakes his head. “His head's not right. You need a hand here?” he asks Natasha.

“No,” she rasps, “you okay taking point on the way out?”

“Think I might be the only one who can,” Sam says and starts forward. He touches Steve on the shoulder as he goes by, “C’mon, this way,” he says, and starts leading them toward the door. Steve hesitates, then nods and follows, like he doesn't know Sam, like he doesn't really trust him. It bothers Clint.

Steve’s functioning but there’s something wrong. Nat’s hurt. Barnes is out. And somebody’s getting trigger-happy with an automatic weapon near by. Things are not good.

The door behind them opens and Clint looks. It’s Rumlow.

Okay, things are bad.

But Rumlow's face looks like somebody’s been tap-dancing on it and that warms the cockles of Clint’s heart. He’s also not obviously armed, but Clint’s known Rumlow long enough to know he’ll have something vicious and electrified on him. Still, it's nice to know somebody beat him up and stole his big gun. Near by, Sam grins.

“Hey, man, what happened to your face?” he asks.

Rumlow scowls at him. Then his eyes go to Steve and Bucky and his mouth drops open. He starts to laugh.

“Memories coming back?” he asks.

Steve doesn’t answer.

“You remember he fried your fucking brain in that room?” Rumlow’s grin is huge, like he is mightily satisfied. “I heard you screaming like a little girl all the way upstairs.”

Clint glances at Sam. Sam looks back and nods. Clint can’t help thinking that now would be a really good time for Sam to know ASL. And now would be a great time to have worked with Sam and be able to guess what the hell he might be thinking, because Clint’s pretty sure he’s thinking _something_.

“That make you mad, big guy?" Rumlow asks. "Get mad and shut him down? You got the other half of that code? Or you just gonna put that Real Doll in your bed and fuck it like that?”

Sam swings his head back toward Rumlow. “What’d I tell you before?” Sam asks. “Shut the hell up.”

Rumlow ignores Sam. “ _Belaruchka_ ,” he says.

Nothing happens.

Rumlow frowns. “ _Belaruchka_ ,” he says, louder this time. “Get the fuck up, Asset.”

Nothing.

Clint grins. He can’t help himself. It’s nice to see Rumlow looking like he just discovered somebody switched his cupcake with a turd. Today is improving.

Rumlow takes a step back. He stares at Steve. “You fucking stripped him,” he says, and there’s something like awe in his voice. “Where did you even get the code for that?” Steve doesn’t answer. Clint keeps his mouth shut. Rumlow steps back again. He puts a hand to his ear. “Asset stripped. Drop all packages. You fucking heard me.”

Sam starts toward Rumlow. “Here,” Sam says, one hand clenching up in a fist, “Lemme fix your face.” 

“I won’t make the funeral,” Rumlow says, stepping back and hauling the door closed, “but I’ll send flowers.”

Sam shoves his shoulder against it a few times, curses, and comes back.

“One day I'm going to do something real unfriendly to that guy,” Sam says.

“Dude, you dropped a building on him,” Clint says.

Sam’s not smiling. “Yeah. Gonna need a bigger building.” He looks back at Steve and lays a hand on his shoulder. “You okay?”

Steve nods. “Yeah. I… yeah.”

Sam nods back. “Good. Come on.”

The rest of the way is clear. No more gunfire, no more Rumlow. They make it to the foyer and it’s chaos; students, campus security (maybe even the real campus security), emergency personnel, the cursing tow truck driver, the human-animal experiments huddled close to Dragon and Spider-Man. And news crews have started arriving. “Shit. We can’t go out there,” Sam says, jerking a thumb at Bucky. "The media will go crazy."

Clint nods. “Hold on. I know a guy. With a helicopter.”

“Helicopter?” Sam asks. Natasha smiles.

“Tony,” she rasps. "Good idea."

Clint fumbles with his phone and texts _huge fucking fuck up_ _send helicopter_

The answer comes back almost immediately. _Jarvis has your location. It’s on the way._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The building based banter between Clint and Sam is totally mined from [Gkmo and bunnigirl74](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/23687111) in the comments for Chapter 16! Thank you guys for being _hilarious_.


	20. United in disapproval

 

It doesn’t take long. Ten minutes later the big white helicopter touches down with surprising delicacy in the middle of the green. Sam leads them out and they all run after him like ducklings. The helicopter takes them to a low building nestled near the Stark Tower. A couple hospital staff and a middle-aged man, fit and well-dressed but with bizarre facial hair, meet them on the roof.

The well-dressed guy takes off his sunglasses and comes forward, nodding at Steve. “I saw the news and I swear to God, Cap, if this has something to do with Barton's ridiculous Circus of Crime friends…” He stops for a beat. Then, “Christ," he says. "You have no idea who I am, do you?”

Steve shakes his head. “Sorry."

The guy looks at Clint. “Barnes wiped him," Clint says. "He’s about… fifty percent?”

The guy whistles. “Honestly, I think you undersold it when you said _huge fucking fuck up_.” He nods toward Steve, then at Bucky. “Look, I know this doesn’t mean a thing to you but Dr. Abdella is my primary. She’s exceptional. She even puts up with the reactor.” He taps himself on his chest. “You can trust her. Uh,” he adds, “Did you know your boy is _foaming_?”

Steve looks down. The guy is right. Bucky’s mouth is full of froth, it’s spilling out the sides. His breath is stuttering in and out, like he can’t cough but he wants to. His lips are faintly blue and they're getting darker.

“The packages,” Natasha rasps. “Rumlow ruptured the chemical packages."

"That looks like atropine poisoning," Sam says. He raises his head and shouts, "Hey, this guy needs a doctor, _now_.”

The hospital staff take Bucky from him. They take him away down a long corridor, and he knows, rationally, that it’s useless to be angry and upset about it. He knows. But he can’t stop himself. Even when Dr Abdella, a very neat, very small woman in her forties, wearing a white coat and a pale blue hijab, smiles kindly at him and says, “Dr. Vickers is an excellent physician. Your friend is in good hands,” it doesn’t make the anger and the upset go away.

Dr. Abdella treats him gently, like he might break. He’s grateful. Sometimes he feels a powerful rage come up, and other times he feels brittle. She asks a few questions, about what happened and about his past. He can answer some of them, but not all. She takes a lot of notes. She looks in his eyes and listens to his heart and lungs. She assigns him a room and has someone send up some lunch. Steve eats not because he's hungry but because he knows food must not be wasted. Then he lies back on the bed and chews his nails, methodically, one after the other, to soothe the huge anxiety inside of him.

Dr. Abdella comes back a little later, and asks him the same set of questions as before. It’s easier this time. He remembers where he was born and his mother’s maiden name. And he remembers trying to stop Bucky before he turned the machine on. His headache is gone. He’s bitten all his fingernails down to blood.

“Can I see him now?”

“Just a moment,” she says. She leans forward with her little pen light. “Look up for me, please, Captain. Very good. And follow my finger. Good.”

“Ma’am?”

Dr. Abdella pockets her little light. “And your head isn’t hurting any more?”

“No, ma’am,” he answers.

She smiles at him over her glasses, as if she’s caught him stealing a cookie. “I’ll let you see him even if it is, you know,” she says. “It’s just for the file.”

He nods and even manages to smile back. “I promise.”

She makes a note on her tablet and searches something. “Notes indicate Sergeant Barnes is out of surgery and in recovery,” she says. “It’s all the way down this hall, past the nurse’s station, and on the right. The room is 10B.”

“Thank you,” Steve says, getting to his feet. “Thank you.”

 

*

 

Near room 10B he finds Clint standing in the hallway. Clint's got his arms folded across his chest, head down like a scolded child. Steve's whole body knots up. All he wants to do is yell at Clint until he feels better.

Clint glances up, sees him. He starts to walk, like he's going to go right past Steve, but he stops before there's enough space for that.

“Things went bad out there today,” Clint says.

“Yeah."

"Doc says surgery went well. They're treating him for the drugs now. He's still out."

Steve exhales. Some of the anger dribbles away.

"You get it back?" Clint asks. "The memories, did they come back?"

"Yeah," Steve says. He sighs and turns to Clint. “Is Nat okay?”

Clint nods. “She's pretty bruised-up but, yeah, she's alright. They’re keeping her over night just in case, but she’s been hurt worse.” He shuffles where he stands, like he’s not sure where to put his feet. Steve nods. He passes a hand through his greasy hair.

"Look, Clint, I know why you did what you did. But it was terrifying and… That word you said, what was it?”

" _Pochemuchka_ ," Clint answers.

“What did it do to him?”

Clint shakes his head. “I don't know." He shrugs. "It was in some papers we got from Pierce’s place." 

Steve stares at him. "You didn't know what it would do?"

"I had to do something," Clint snaps. 

The rage comes back like a wave and Steve can't stop himself. “Jesus, Clint. You could have _killed_ him.”

“He was going to kill Natasha!” Clint answers, just as loud.

“He thinks she’s still Red Room, he doesn’t _know!_ ”

“You think that would have made her somehow _less dead?_ ”

“ _Boys._ ”

Natasha’s voice is gravely but sharp. They both turn and see her coming toward them. Her left eye is livid red. The marks on her neck are turning a plum-stain purple now, and they fit like a collar, filling up the space between her chin and clavicle. Steve’s surprised to see she’s not wearing a hospital gown. She’s dressed. Dressed like she might be leaving.

“Aren’t you supposed to be…?” Steve asks.

Clint frowns at her. 

“United in disapproval,” Natasha says, grinning a wry little grin. “Clint, there's something Tony wants to talk to us about.” She clears her throat and coughs a little. “Come on.”

Clint stuffs his hands into his pockets. He looks sideways up at Steve like he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t. He goes over to Natasha and the two of them start back down the hall.

 

And then it’s just Steve, and room 10B. He goes in.

 

Bucky lies in a narrow bed around which are clustered a number of machines. There’s a mask over his face, slightly fogged. There’s a yellow port in his right arm, into which a clear plastic tube is inserted. His hands lie open on the bedclothes. His eyes are closed.

“Hey Buck,” Steve whispers, coming around to the side of the bed. He glances at the machines clustered near the head of the bed. He can't read them all, but he can read a few of them. Bucky's heart rate looks slow and strong, and his oxygen seems okay. At least that's good. “Well," he says, trying hard to make his voice sound light. "How’s this for a change? You're the one who needs a doctor and I'm on soup-duty.”

He wants Bucky to open his eyes. He wants to see his chest bounce in a laugh. Weak would be fine. Tired would be fine. Exhausted would be fine. Anything would be fine. But there’s nothing. 

He remembers what Rumlow said. _Stripped._ He doesn’t know what it means but he knows Rumlow was a sometime-handler, and he’s damn sure that if Rumlow could have undone what Clint did, he would have. He even tried, and whatever he tried didn't work. Steve knows that Rumlow was close to Pierce. It occurs to him that if Rumlow didn’t have the ability to undo the effect of that code, Steve doesn’t have any idea who does. It's possible the only one who knows how to undo whatever Clint's done is dead.

He goes over to grab the little metal chair in the corner and drags it across the linoleum to the bedside. He sits and doesn't know what to do with himself for a moment. Then he leans forward, lays his his hand over Bucky's and holds it gently. Nobody looks in, or asks him to explain.


	21. The family business

They convene in the cafeteria because Natasha’s room is far too small. Also, there is macaroni and cheese, which Tony happens to know is one of Clint’s top three desert island foods, and Clint, by all accounts, has had a hell of a bad day. Tony’s never seen him look quite so hangdog before. And that’s saying something, because he was there for fall-out from the pizza incident.

Clint’s got a big plate of bright noodles covered in that heavy-duty sauce beloved of mega-kitchens all across the United States, the sort that looks like it could either be cheese or mustard, and doesn’t really taste like either. Clint’s pushing it and the noodles around with his plastic fork, making little streaks across the paper plate. Tony understands.

Clint’s a fan of Captain America’s. Not as big as Tony is. After all, Clint doesn’t have a _room_ dedicated to his collection. In fact, Tony’s not sure he even has a collection of what Tony likes to think of a _Cap Crap_. Not like him or Coulson. Coulson’s hard-core, Tony has a lot of respect for his collection. Clint’s a second tier admirer. Definitely second their. But he’s still upset. Bad day all round.

Natasha comes over and sits down with her little cup of coffee ( _may I have it in a ceramic mug please?_ She asked so sweetly, of course the guy with the hair net was going to give her anything she wanted. She is so, so damn good at that). She pours some sugar into what’s probably the only metal spoon in the whole place and measures out two teaspoons and stirs.

“Everybody good? Great. Okay.” Tony clears his throat. “As president and CEO of the BBDL, I’d like to congratulate you on—”

Clint shovels a forkful of pasta off the edge of his plate. “Wait, _what_?”

“Oh come on I never actually like doing those intros but this time I was actually excited. And it's the BBDL. Bucky Barnes Defense League. Oh for God’s sake don’t tell me you haven’t noticed the graffiti.”

“That’s you?” Clint asks. Tony grins. Then he looks at Natasha and she looks confused. God, _yes_. It’s not every day you pull one over on someone like Natasha. Life is good. Everything is good. He feels his grin get way bigger.

“President and CEO. Pepper’s treasurer. Turns out one person isn’t allowed to be the name on everything. Tax purposes. Or charitable status. Something legal.”

Natasha shakes her head. “Why would you run an organization dedicated to defending Bucky Barnes?”

Close to the bone. Nope. He slips into auto-charm mode. “I am actually a very well known philanthropist, Ms. Romanov.”

She scowls. With the bruising around her neck it is extra terrifying. He doesn’t care about most people, but the Avengers are the nearest he’s ever come to having something you’d consider friends outside of Rhodey and Pep. He knows he drives people away. He’s genuinely surprised every time Pepper calls and it’s to say something other than _I’m leaving you_. Likewise with these guys. He doesn’t want to screw that up. He should probably say something.

“It’s because of Afghanistan,” Clint says.

Tony blinks and looks back at him. “Sometimes I forget you pay attention,” he says.

Clint shrugs. Natasha’s expression doesn’t change but the angle of her head shifts a little, like she's considering this.

Tony wants something to do with his hands and there’s nothing to work on. He takes a fingerful of the semi-coagulated mac and cheese on Clint’s plate. “You think I don’t have nightmares where I didn’t escape? You’re so very wrong about that.” He eats it. It’s _horrible_. He’d spit it out but he’s not an animal. He licks his lips and looks at Clint. “I see why you’re not eating that,” he says.

“Nothing wrong with it,” Clint says, a little defensively, and eats a forkful like he’s proving a point.

“What does the BBDL want from us?” Natasha asks.

“Well, an update would be helpful. I’ve got the lawyers on standby and, like I said earlier. I saw the news. So did a few million other people.”

“Lawyers?” Clint asks.

Tony sighs. “You think the president’s going to just say “Welcome back, Barnes” and give him his back pay and shake his hand? The man’s been killing world leaders for seventy years. He's a political problem. They’re going to try him, and if they don’t actually manage to hang him it’ll be because he’s got the best team of lawyers money can buy. Public support won't hurt either. So, BBDL.”

“Really?” Natasha asks. "After what he did to your family?"

Tony shrugs. “I look at him and I see what could have happened to me, in a way. Maybe not actually pulling the trigger, but building weapons for the bad guys. Also, don't talk about my family again. I don't talk about yours."

Natasha makes a little noise. She looks down at her coffee and he would really like to know what that means because he thinks it might mean she’s angry. And he really would like it if she wasn’t angry at him. It’s not that he’s afraid of her, not any more than he’s afraid of plenty of people who’re good at killing, but it’s the _friend_ thing. It complicates. So much.

“So, status. Come on. Barnes, on TV, looking sympathetic, Pepper’s got it all planned out.”

“I think that’s going to be a while coming,” Clint says. He sighs and pushes his plate away. “You know how Hydra was using codes with sleeper agents and on him?” Tony nods because yes, everybody knows that, since the 1960s, A+ for thoroughness Clint, but seriously. “I used one of the codes on him.”

Tony shrugs and reaches for the pasta again but stops himself. _Gross,_ he reminds himself. _No._

Natasha is emphatically _not_ looking at Clint and that means something, it means something, and god he wishes Pepper was here because she knows about unsaid things like this.

“Codes like that have two parts,” Natasha says. “There’s the shut down and there’s the reactivate. They’re different words."

Tony nods. He takes another fingerful of the pasta and eats it before his brain catches up. “So?” he asks while he’s chewing.

Natasha keeps looking at her coffee. Clint sighs and sits back in his chair. “We don’t have the other half of the code.”

"So, you need an override."

"I don't think there's an override for this," Natasha says. "The code was in Pierce's things. It was high-level. I…” Natasha shrugs. "I've seen that kind of reaction before. That code was a total reset."

"Nat," Clint says softly. He's sitting forward now, like this is news to him.

"Wait," Tony says, "what does that actually mean?"

"I means he won't function until someone gives him the other half of the code," she answers. 

"How do you know about this?" Clint asks.

She shrugs. "He trained a bunch of us, the promising ones, when I was in the Red Room." Her voice is getting a little weird. She looks at Tony like Tony's the one who asked the question. "We had a relationship. They punished us."

Clint is looking at her and she is  _not_ looking back at him. "You've seen him reset before," Clint says.

She nods. "There's only one other person I know who had access to codes like this." She dips her head and when she looks up Tony can see the smile is just painted on. "Lucky for us, she's still alive." She laughs softly. "Old Red Room Matrons never die."

"Where is she?" Clint asks.

Natasha looks at Clint at last. "She's in Budapest," she says.

 


	22. Cookie, tea, and a nap

Natasha and Tony are talking travel arrangements when Clint sees Sam come into the cafeteria. He moves toward the stainless steel sneeze-guard in the food service area like he’s on a mission. He says something to the guy with the hairnet behind the counter and the guy produces an enormous cookie from a tray and a huge paper cup of tea. Sam nods, then goes up to the till and pays. A little sweat is glittering at his temple.

Clint gets to his feet. Tony and Natasha stop talking and look at him. “Sam,” he says, gesturing. “I’m gonna… I’ll be right back.”

He goes over while Sam’s paying the lady at the till. “Hey man,” he says. “I was wondering where you went.”

Sam looks over at him and nods. He hasn’t smiled since he came into the cafeteria and Clint doesn’t know Sam much but Sam’s got crinkles at the corners of his eyes and a line on the left side of his face where it looks like a lopsided smile usually sits. Plus, Sam’s not an asshole, but he didn’t even say thanks to the lady at the till.

“You okay?”

Sam’s mouth twitches. “I need a couple minutes,” he says.

Clint nods. “You, uh, you want some company?”

Sam hesitates, then nods. “Sure.”

They go out the swinging doors and into the dusty sunshine. Buses rumble by and stop near the big red Admitting sign. There’s a haze of stinking fumes that splits the sunlight on one side of them, and on the other, the parking lot seems to stretch out forever. It’s not exactly a restful vista, but nearby there’s a bench and a garbage can, and the old guy who’s standing out there smoking is just about done his cigarette.

Sam goes over and drops down onto the bench. He sets the big paper cup down between his feet and leans forward, elbows on knees, the paper bag dangling from his fingers. The guy finishes his cigarette and goes away, so there’s room for Clint to sit down too.

He sits and waits, because Sam said he needed a minute. A bus goes by, disgorges an assortment of people who disperse into various buildings, or stand chatting, or thumb at phone screens while they wait for the next bus. After a minute Sam sits back and breaks a chunk off the cookie.

“I don’t like hospitals much,” he says. He offers the piece to Clint. Clint waves and shakes his head. Sam eats the piece himself. “Lost my baby sister in one when she was real little. Then I lost my dad in one.”

Clint nods.

“Don’t like hospitals at the best of times. Plus, I haven’t slept much in the last two weeks. Haven’t eaten right. No water. Nothing but coffee for days. No exercise. Haven’t been taking my meds.” He stuffs another chunk of cookie in his mouth and chews. “So I’m gonna eat this cookie, and drink this cup of tea, take my meds, get a motel room, and have a shower and a nap. That’s what I need to do.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little blister pack of pills, pops one out and swallows it, then follows up with a gulp of the tea.

They sit in silence for a while. Sam chews his way through half the cookie, and goes from gulping to sipping the tea. After a while he turns to look at Clint again.

“Is this how you live?” he asks.

Clint feels his eyebrows go up. “You mean, cowboying around getting into trouble?”

Sam nods.

Clint shrugs. “Well, today was a bit of a shit show, but yeah. More or less.”

Sam laughs softly and shakes his head. “Human-animal hybrids, super-soldiers with crazy code words, mind-wipes…” he shakes his head some more. “That shit’s messed up.”

Clint nods. “I guess it is,” he agrees. “I don’t really think about it any more. I mean, the thing that happened with SHIELD, that’s… I could do with that kind of thing never happening again but the rest. Meh.” He shrugs again. “I guess you sort of lose perspective.”

“Like a combat zone,” Sam says quietly. “It gets normal after a while. After a while you don’t know what normal actually is.”

Clint glances at him. Sam’s looking better. The sweat on his forehead has disappeared. His jaw’s not set so hard any more. Now he just looks tired. _Two weeks keeping up with Steve_ , Clint reminds himself. _That'd tire anybody out_.

“You need anything?" Clint asks. Sam glances at him and flashes a quick smile.

"No. Nothing but this for another ten minutes or so," he says.

 

 

They sit in silence while the buses come and go and Clint's ears hurt a little. He rubs under the spot where the hearing aid sits and thinks a little as he does it. "You gonna stay in town?” he asks. “Till things with Steve get sorted out?”

Sam looks over at him.

“Just asking ‘cause I don’t think Barnes is leaving the hospital any time soon, and you have, like, a real job, don’t you?”

Sam nods. “Yeah. Took vacation to do this. I’m gonna have to go back soon. I don't know. Maybe I should tell them I'm taking a leave.” He sighs and shakes his head a little. "Hey, you know Steve pretty well, right? You've known him since he came out of the ice?"

Clint considers that for a moment. "Yeah. More or less. But I don't think anybody knows Steve all that well. Except maybe you."

"Huh," Sam says, and he sounds genuinely surprised. "Well, look, I think Steve’s in love with Barnes. But I don’t think he knows it yet.”

Clint frowns. He actually not surprised to hear Sam say that. It's like a part of him had kinda noticed Steve's IQ plummeted any time Barnes' safety was an issue, the way Clint's sometimes does around Natasha. “Did he say something to you?”

Sam shakes his head. “No.” He breaks off another chunk of cookie and looks at it. "Maybe keep that to yourself, okay?" he says carefully. “The only reason I said anything to you is because he's going to need support. I know he trusts you and Natasha." He looks at Clint and Clint understands what he's asking. He nods. "But I don’t think Steve’s out.”

“I don’t know if Steve knows what _out_ is,” Clint says. And that’s a conversation he really doesn’t want to be around for. Definitely a day to not be wearing the damn hearing aids. Also, if possible, to be in another town. No matter where he is, he'll probably be able to see Steve’s face, fluorescent red, in satellite images of earth. “And before you ask, I, for one, am not giving a 95 year old The Talk.”

Sam’s smile returns with a vengeance. “Aw, c'mon, I thought you guys were friends.”

Clint laughs again. "For-fucking-get it," he says.

Sam sips his tea to hide a grin and they both stifle their laughs. "Thanks for this," Sam says quietly after a minute.

Clint shrugs. "I needed some fresh air anyway."

A bus goes rumbling to a stop and belches out a cloud of fumes. Sam doesn't say a thing.

“So,” Clint says, clearing his throat. “Nat and I are going to Hungary.”

“What?" Sam asks. "When?”

“Soon. Maybe tonight. It’s a… thing to do with the codes. I gotta clean up my mess, and Nat’s gonna help me. Anyway, I’ve got a dog that needs looking after.” He rubs at his sore ear. “You can crash at my place if you don’t mind looking after Lucky. It’s in Bed-Stuy. Not real convenient for the hospital, but it’s free.”

Sam purses his lips thoughtfully, then he looks back at Clint. “You okay?” he asks. "Your head bugging you?"

“I got these new ear molds," he says. "They're driving me crazy. I’m gonna take them out.”

Sam nods.

“You know,” Clint says, pulling the first aid out. “At my place? There might even be food in the fridge.”

“Might?” Sam asks.

“It’s possible,” Clint answers, rubbing the sore spot behind his ear, then starting with the other one. “Might even be edible still.”

Sam laughs. He offers Clint the cookie again, and this time Clint takes a piece.

 


	23. Time means nothing when you'll wait forever

Bucky is aware of someone moving his arms and his legs. Of his bones settling into something soft. A bed. He tries to spool back but there’s a huge gap in his memory. He remembers someone yelling a code, trying to fight it, failing. He’d been killing someone. A Widow. Natalia Romanova. Before that he’d been running. He and Steve had been running away from something. Oh God.

Steve.

_Steve._

He wants to open his mouth, to shout.

_NO._

The voice in his head booms like a thunderclap. The voice in his head reminds him of the code word: _Pochemuchka._

His heart speeds up. _No, please no,_ he tells the voice in his head. But the voice in his head reminds him that he learned this word, and the learning of it was not easy.

“What are you?” they had asked him.

“The Asset,” he answered, and then—

Two hands flat on the sloping concrete floor, one silver, one flesh. The smell of burning meat, the smell of animal waste, and blood. His mind recoils from the memory of the pain, it recalls only the wet sound of his own vomit hitting the ground.

“No, you are nothing. _Pochemuchka_. What are you?”

He remembers panicking. He remembers thinking: _Oh god, I don’t know. I don’t know what you want from me. Please, I don’t know._

He remembers going still.

“Good.” They said, and it did not hurt. “Remember that.”

He does.

He does.

 

***

 

The word _catatonic_ was around when Steve was a kid. It went hand in hand with words like _hopeless case_ and _madhouse._

“Well, there are a number of different medications we can try,” says the third, no, the fourth doctor of the day. Steve has already asked him his name twice and forgotten it. Seems too rude to ask again. Besides, he’s a long way past caring now.

“I’d like to run some tests…”

The doctor talks. If it’s something called locked-in syndrome Bucky probably has about four months before his body shuts down. If it’s catatonia, it could last till he dies of old age. If he even can. Or it could be something else all together. Something built by Hydra. The doctor is trying not to sound too fascinated. It sounds like they’re going to draw a lot of blood and do a lot of tests.

Steve tries to listen. And Bucky does nothing.

His eyes are still open just a little, and Steve’s still holding his hand.

“…sometimes extremely high rates of dopamine can indicate a…”

Steve nods along, like any of this makes sense, but all he can think of is, _So this is the reset_. Bucky blinks. He breathes. He swallows. He does not respond to pain, or lights, or his name. He does not respond to anything at all.

“…I mean, cognitively, he may be just fine. It’s a matter of understanding the mechanism that’s…”

Bucky’s eyes don’t move, not even when the doctor shines the pen light into them. And when Steve squeezes his hand or pushes back the ragged hair from his forehead, Bucky doesn’t seem to feel it. He can’t stop thinking about what Rumlow said. He can’t get the words out of his head. _You just gonna put that Real Doll in your bed and fuck it like that?_

 _It._ Like Bucky was a thing. Like Steve would ever, _ever--_

“Captain Rogers?”

Steve blinks. “Sorry,” he says. “I’m…” he clears his throat. “I’m afraid I’m out of my depth.”

The doctor nods. He smiles apologetically. “Right,” he says. “I forgot that it’s been a long day for you.”

Steve smiles. “Yeah.”

“I’ll ask one of the nurses to come by with some reading material about catatonia. Tomorrow, we’ll discuss treatment. In the mean time, I’ll run those tests tonight, if that’s alright.”

Steve nods.

The doctor tucks his tablet under his arm and leaves, pulling the door closed behind him. Steve exhales. He looks back at Bucky.

“Asking me if it’s okay to run those tests,” he whispers. “I don’t even know what a lot of that stuff means. You probably know more than me about medicine. All I know is when I needed the menthol stuff and when I had to have the liquorice. And it turns out cigarettes are real bad for asthma. We could have saved our money.” He tries to smile but doesn’t think he manages it. “You warm enough?” he asks. Then he waits, but there’s no sign. Bucky’s flesh arm is cool, though, so Steve shakes out the spare blanket that’s on the foot of the bed and settles it over him.

“First time I ever wished I was small again,” he murmurs, adjusting the blanket so it covers Bucky up to the chin. “It’d be nice to get up there with you, like you used to do for me when I was down with something.”

Bucky says nothing. He does nothing.

Steve sits back down in the little metal chair. Then he leans forward and puts his head in his hands. It’s just that he’s tired. Really tired. So tired.

 

***

Time means nothing when you'll wait forever.

 

Someone folds a warm hand over his.

Someone says his name.

Someone asks, _You warm enough?_

No one says the right thing.


	24. Little whispers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings have been updated; there's self-harm in this chapter. Please take care, friends.

It’s exactly nine hours and fourteen minutes from New York to Budapest. It’s the first time Natasha’s flown a commercial flight since she came in to SHIELD and she feels naked without her Stings. She plays a little with the garrotte in her sleeve while she sits crammed into a too-small seat facing forward as if this was a bus. She has the middle seat. It could not be more inconvenient or unpleasant. At least the neighbour on the one side obligingly went to sleep. If only Clint didn’t snore _quite_ so much.

It’s the nose. Too many times broken and not set quite right. It’s part of what makes him look like a little dog and it’s part of what she looks for when she’s looking for him. She likes his nose, crooked though it is.

“First time to Budapest?” asks the guy sitting next to her. She considers. Nine hours and fourteen minutes of small talk with a businessman who’s wearing a polyester suit to fly coach to one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. She smiles at him.

“ _Otvali_ ,” she says very sweetly.

His smile sort of freezes in place. “Oh, no English huh?” he says. Then he lowers the tray and puts his laptop on it and starts in on a spreadsheet. Natasha leans back and slips her headphones in. She notices the glitter of Clint’s half-open eye and frowns at him. He grins and goes back to pretending to sleep.

 

*

 

“You’re obnoxious,” she says when they’re getting their bags from the carousel. “That fake snoring is awful.”

“Actually," he says, grabbing his backpack as it comes tumbling down the chute, "I am a skilled actor.”

“For the first five minutes, maybe. But the last eight and a half hours were not acting." She grabs her own small bag, and then the larger one. "You should try some of those nasal strips people wear in TV advertisements."

“Nat.” Clint looks pained, like she physically punched him. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”

"You're covered in bandages all the time anyway," she says. "What's one more?"

"A nose strip," Clint scoffs, and starts toward the great glass doors.

She watches him for a moment. A long time ago she realized that she could sleep without difficulty as long as Clint was near. In a helicopter after a mission, in the spare bedroom of her place. First she thought it was merely training. After all, Clint had clearance she did not yet have, he was her senior on missions, and she ought to feel safe around him.

But she couldn’t keep the fiction up very long. So she thought it must be only that Clint wanted nothing from her that she would not willingly give, which was a novel thing. But then she found herself late one night after a mission, staring in the mirror, unable to stop cutting at her face.

It had started with a little thing. A speck on her face that she scratched off, and kept scratching, and then somehow her fingertips were slick with blood. She kept saying _Oh, stop, Natalia, stop, your face is bleeding_ , but could not will herself to put the razor down. She called him with her free hand.

“I can’t stop cutting myself,” she said. It had never been so bad before. It had always been small wounds, quick to heal and easy to hide, on arms and legs, but this was different. It had her like a wild dog, it was dragging her, and she was suddenly afraid that she would cut her face to pieces, as if there was something underneath she had to excise, like a poison in her.

“I’m, like, ten minutes from you. I’m on my way right now. I’ll be there soon. Just. Shoes. Shoes are important. Nat, you there?”

“Yes,”

“You still cutting?”

No. She had stopped. “Keep talking to me. Please keep talking.”

“I’m leaving right now. Locking the door. Stairs. There’s like, a million of them. And they all squeak.”

When he arrived she was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, her phone in one hand and the razor in the other. He called Coulson. He made arrangements. She found out later that he had told anyone who asked that she had food poisoning and would be out for a week at least. He fed the cat when she was in the secure unit. He watered her plants. When she came home, there was foil-wrapped chocolate orange on the table with a note that said, _you can always call me._ She doesn’t like chocolate and she doesn’t like oranges, and Clint has always known it. She stood in the dining room and laughed while the cat twined between her feet.

After that, she realized she had what the girls in the dorm would have called " _vlubitsya po ushi"_ and what Maria Hill just called  _it._ As in " _got it bad"_.

The greater part of her rejects it entirely. It’s impossible. Red Room girls _cannot_ love, and those who try are punished for it. But some small part of her is whispering, _You can have what you want sometimes._ After all, she’s not what she once was. She has become Natasha Romanov. Protagonist. Whistle-blower. Friend of Steve Rogers. And that small, whispering part of her, it’s getting harder to ignore.

She shakes her head and starts after Clint. She’s thinking about love, of all things. She’s thinking about love when she’s going to see a Matron. _This is how girls end up dead,_ she tells herself and closes her eyes. When she opens her eyes, Clint's looking over his shoulder at her.

“Yeah, I’m zonked too. Let’s get a place and crash.”

She smiles faintly. “No. We have to go see Matron before we do anything else.”

Clint frowns. “How’s she even going to know we’re…” he stops. “Right. Never mind.”

Natasha smiles. She shoulders her little bag and checks the compartment. The Stings lie exactly as she left them. She smiles and slips them on. “Two things, if you want to survive. One: Don’t lie to Matron.”

“Okay. And the other one?”

She shakes her arms and the bracelets settle. “Don’t lie to Matron.”

Clint nods. “Point made,” he says. He licks his lips. “Should we have brought a, um, a gift or something?”

“I did,” Natasha says. She hefts her spare bag. It’s in there. Dottie will love it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many thanks to the wonderful @SecretlytoDream for her generous help with the Russian in this chapter!


	25. True north

Someone knocks on the doorframe and Steve looks up. There’s a young woman in scrubs there, with a big blue coat over her arm. She smiles at Steve. “The surgeons cut off his clothes, but they just snipped the buttons on the coat. Do you think he’ll still want it?”

Steve nods. He clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says, coming to his feet, “thanks.”

She hands it over to him with a half-smile. “Is he… everybody’s saying that’s the Winter Soldier. Is it?”

Steve swallows. “It’s…” he starts to say Bucky’s name and can’t. He nods.

“Should he be… cuffed or something?”

Steve clears his throat. “I’m looking after it,” he says. She nods.

“Okay, well, if you need it, there’s an emergency button on the bed. Not that…” she shrugs. “I mean. I saw DC on the news.”

He nods. “I’m looking after it,” he says again. He’s too tired to think of anything else to say.

He takes the coat back to his seat and wonders what to do with it. It looks a lot like Bucky’s old coat. The blue is too dark, and the front isn’t quite right, and it looks to Steve like somebody moved the buttons on it, but it’s blue and double-breasted, and Steve can't help wondering if Bucky chose it because he remembered owning something like that, once, a long time ago.

He settles the coat over the back of the chair. There’s something in one of the pockets. Steve reaches in, and pulls out a small, squashed white-bread sandwich. The peanut butter and jam combo looks like the aftermath of a massacre, but it’s being contained by the plastic wrap.

“You like PB and J, huh?” Steve asks softly. “Me too. It’s pretty much two sandwiches in one, which is genius if you ask me.” He pauses, thinking. “Remember when peanuts were a big deal?” he asks. Then he sets the sandwich aside and shakes his head. “I sound like I’m ninety-five,” he murmurs. He yawns. “I _feel_ like I’m ninety-five.” He rubs at his face but it doesn’t help with the tiredness. There’s another chair in the room, on the far side, near the window. He gets up and drags it over, then pushes it up against the first to make a wholly inadequate sort of little bed. Bucky's coat is a pretty decent pillow.

He closes his eyes. It’s uncomfortable but it’s not awful. And he’d rather be lying down that sitting up in the chair. And he’s so, so tired.

About a minute after he's closed his eyes he hears Tony Stark say, “Uh-uh, no. You are way too big for that.”

Steve cracks open an eye. Tony’s standing in the doorway of the hospital room looking in and shaking his head. Steve pushes himself upright.

“Tony,” he says. “I'm sorry I didn't recognize you at the helipad. Thank you. For everything.”

Tony waves one hand in the air as if a helicopter extraction and a stay in a good room in an excellent hospital isn’t even worth mentioning.

“How’s your brain?” Tony asks.

Steve smiles faintly. “I think everything’s back.”

“How's his?”

Steve tries to speak and can’t. He can’t think of where to begin. Bucky was living on his own, two weeks alone. He’s been hiding from Hydra. Eating. Sleeping. Surviving. He had a blue coat like the one he had in the war. He had been to the Smithsonian exhibit. He was together enough to have a plan, to take Steve to that lab. To try to rescue him. Brave enough to face down Rumlow. He was himself enough to be sickened by what he did to Steve. And now?

Steve shakes his head.

Tony looks up at the tiled ceiling, and then he looks down at the linoleum floor. “Look, we haven’t always gotten along and maybe you don’t care what I think and also, I am bad at this, but…” he comes over to sit down beside him on the chairs. “Come on. Maybe this stoic thing was the height of manliness circa 1940 but it's actually really unhealthy.”

"He's, uh." Steve's throat closes up. He swallows a few times. "Surgery was fine. But Clint's code word… It's… He's catatonic. They don't know how to fix it. I..."

It's just facts, it shouldn't be so hard. But it is. It feels like it's impossible. Steve sighs.

"I don't even really know what they mean when they say catatonic,” he admits softly. He shakes his head. "I mean, I guess it's _this_ , but, I mean… I was sick a lot so I didn't do well in school and then war came along and there was never a chance to… and I didn't get a chance to go to college. These doctors, they're nice, they're so smart and they're so eager, but they keep talking about things and I don't know what they mean. But none of them can _do_ anything. What difference does any of it make if nobody can help him?"

He sits forward and turns his face away from Tony.

"I just want him back. That's all I want. What happened to him should never have happened. He's not a monster. He's not what people think he is. Something _terrible_ happened to him and it's..." He has to stop.

Tony draws in a long, slow breath. “Okay. Honesty hour," he says. "I remember when I thought Pepper was gone. She was just, there, then suddenly gone.” His voice is very low. Steve turns back to look at him. Tony mimes a small explosion with his hands. “Poof. No more Pepper. I let that happen." He pauses. "I remember seeing my future and in that second I really wasn't sure I wanted to be in it."

Steve's throat aches and he's afraid to swallow, or speak, or even clear his throat. But Tony doesn’t seem to need a response. He keeps talking.

“People say she's my better half but that's not it. I mean, she is, obviously. But she's not _just_ that. I don't know where the hell I'm going without her guiding the way.” He shrugs. “She's my true north. And he's yours."

Steve looks down at his hands, ragged and red where he's chewed the nails down. He twines his fingers together so the bitten nails are hidden, and there are only the lines of his knuckles left to see. There should be scars there, the knuckles twisted and swollen from a lifetime of fighting. But the serum erases. All that bloody-knuckle past has turned to myth, and the only other exile from that country is the man lying in the bed in front of him. "Yeah," he whispers. He takes a big breath and sits up a little more. "Yeah," he says again, softly. "I know people won't understand."

"Some will. Some won't." Tony shrugs. He shifts where he sits. “So," he clears his throat. "Clint and Natasha are on their way to Budapest."

Steve looks at him. "What?"

"Natasha thinks one of the Red Room Matrons might know the second half of the code."

Steve exhales. Hope is dangerous. Hope took him like a whirlwind this morning and look how that turned out. But he feels lighter now than he did a moment ago. The weight of his tiredness isn't so crushing.

"What if it's not?" he asks

"If not we'll work on getting an override," Tony says. "Maybe through an empath or a telepath. Charles Xavier has a school upstate. I could call in a couple favours.”

Steve nods again. He still feels like he's being choked but it's not helplessness anymore. Now it's gratitude.

"Thank you, Tony."

Tony looks back at him and grins. "I was going to tell you to come back to the tower with me. I've got a guest room that's red, white, and blue. Even has a plushie eagle, which, incidentally, Pepper objected to, but she is so wrong. It is _exquisitely_ appropriate."

Steve smiles a little. "Sounds amazing," he says, "but I'm going to stay here."

"Yeah, I know," Tony answers, getting to his feet again. “But the two chairs pushed together thing is seriously a terrible idea. I’ll get somebody to send up a cot."

 

 

About a ten minutes after Tony leaves, somebody comes in with a cot on wheels. It’s brand new, the mattress still in a plastic wrapper.

The cot is too small, but the virtue of that is that it fits between Bucky’s bed and most of the machines. He can push it up close, lie with his arm under the bed rail, and his hand resting on Bucky’s blanket-covered arm. Steve sleeps.

 

 

When he wakes the sky beyond the window is dark. Someone's been into the room and now there are two plastic-wrapped white-bread sandwiches on the table near Bucky’s bed. Steve frowns at them. They don't look like the ones from the cafeteria. They look like the one Bucky had in his coat pocket. He takes a closer look. One's peanut butter and jam, and the other one is egg salad. The egg salad is labelled _Bluejay_.

 


	26. In lieu of flowers

 

The smell of coffee wakes him up. He raises he head and sees that Sam’s just set a couple big paper cups of coffee down on the table. Sam throws away the wrappers from the sandwiches Steve ate last night. He ate all three; no point in letting them spoil.

“Coffee?” Steve mumbles.

“And breakfast,” Sam agrees. He produces Two paper boxes, some plastic cutlery, and a handful of napkins. Steve sits up.

“Thanks,” he murmurs. The first box has bacon, soft eggs, pancakes. A little pack of butter. A little pack of syrup, a squirt of melting whipped cream. The second is just full to the brim with hashed browns. Steve groans. “Sam, you’re a saint,” he says, tucking in with the plastic fork.

“You get any dinner last night?”

Steve nods at the wrappers. “Ate the sandwiches.” He nods at Sam. “Thanks, by the way.”

“I didn’t bring you any sandwiches.”

He stops chewing for a minute. “You didn’t drop them off?”

Sam shakes his head.

“But one said _Bluejay._ That’s…” he stops.

“That’s what Spider-Man calls him,” Sam says, sitting forward. “Turns out Bucky was supering with him a bit before all this.”

Steve realizes his mouth is hanging open. He closes it. He looks back at Bucky and can’t help smiling a little.

“That Spider-Man, whoever he is,” Sam shrugs, “he’s got a big heart. It wouldn’t surprised me if it was him.”

Steve nods and goes back to his breakfast. “Bucky and me, we’ve got good friends,” he murmurs. Sam shrugs but he’s smiling just the same. Steve stops eating for long enough to take a swig of the coffee and a nurse carrying a huge bouquet of lilies comes in. She stops part way through the door.

“Oh,” she says. “I didn’t know anyone was visiting. These came for him, and it’s time for a little medication.”

Sam gets to his feet and takes the flowers. Steve clears the garbage off the little table to make space. The flowers are impressive.

“Natasha?” Sam asks, looking down at the bouquet.

“Not really her style,” Steve says while the nurse checks the monitors and then the IV. She opens a drawers and draws a needle from the stack in there, and takes a bottle of something from her pocket. “Spider-Man?” Steve asks.

“I’m thinking that’s a little out of his price range.” He drops back into his chair.

Steve nods. Somebody said something about flowers, it’s niggling at him. But yesterday was too much and everything’s sort of smeared together in his memory. He takes another mouthful of hash brown and then remembers. Bucky’s not receiving medication. He and the doctor are going to talk about that this morning. He looks at Sam, and Sam uncrosses his feet and sets them down flat on the ground, ready to move.

“Doctor Abdella ask for that medication?” Steve asks.

The nurse blinks. She smiles. “Hmm? Yes, that’s what was on my sheet.”

Steve sets aside his breakfast. “Bucky’s had four doctors in this hospital, but doctor Abdella wasn’t one of them.”

The nurse freezes. Her smile fixes on her face.

“If you want to get the hell out of here, now’s a good time,” Steve says.

She backs up two steps, and then runs.

Sam jumps to his feet. “Stay,” he snaps at Steve.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees.

Sam disappears and Steve waits. He stands at Bucky’s bedside, shoulders taut as coiled wire. He waits for Rumlow, or for anyone from the STRIKE team to come through the door. Instead, somebody says, “Hey, everything okay?” from window.

Steve whirls around. And blinks. He recognizes Spider-Man, of course, the guy gets a lot of attention from the Bugle, most of it negative.

The guy climbs in the window and hesitates. “You want this left open?” he asks.

Steve mouths soundlessly.

“Something going on?”

“Somebody just tried to kill Bucky". 

“So situation normal, all fucked up?”

Steve _stares_ and then he starts laughing, like he’s punch-drunk. He is a little bit giddy. “How do you even know about that?”

Spider-Man shrugs. “We still use it,” he says. “But usually people just say _snafu_.”

Steve shakes his head. He offers his hand and Spider-Man shakes.

“You made the sandwiches,” Steve says. “Thank you.”

“Yeah but…” he turns his masked face toward Bucky. “He doesn’t look like he’s…”

“He’s not.”

Sam returns, breathing hard and grinning. “All that running around the mall,” he says, nodding, “it’s paying off. ” He trades grips with Spider-Man. “Good to see you, man. You guys doing okay?”

“Us?” Spider-Man asks. “Oh, you mean Dragon. Yeah, Dragon’s good. They’re all good, actually. I guess there’s been a bit of a run on harlequin masks in the last twenty-four hours.” He laughs softly. Then he sobers just as fast. “Everything seemed so good this morning, I was really hoping Bluejay’d be awake. Dragon’s been asking about him too.”

“He’s awake,” Steve says quietly. “But he's…” Steve shakes his head. He doesn’t want to say _he’s been reset_ because it makes Bucky sound like an object, a computer or a phone.

“You know,” Sam says quietly, “they just tried to kill him. Maybe it’s better if he misses that.”

Spider-Man exhales. “Man, those Hydra guys are a total bag of dicks,” he mutters. “Well, everybody’s talking about what happened yesterday. And, I don’t know if you know, but there’s press camped outside too. The _Bugle_ ran an op ed this morning saying the BBDL’d be running an insanity defense in the trial, and suggesting this is all for show. Whatever you’re planning on doing, you should probably do it soon.”

“We’re waiting for Clint and Natasha,” Steve says.

“Honestly? I don’t think I’d wait here,” Spider-Man tells him.

Sam nods. “I was just thinking that. This place isn’t safe anyway.”

“He’s catatonic,” Steve says. “Where am I going to take him? Tony would have us at the tower but the press will just mob there." He shakes his head. "And how am I going to move him without anyone noticing?”

Sam’s eyebrows go up. “As it happens, I’m housesitting for a friend who’s in Budapest. And I don’t have my wings any more but…” he looks at Spider-Man, “I know a guy who doesn’t need to use the roads so much.”

Spider-Man’s back straightens up. He nods. “Pretty much never. How far are we going?”

 


	27. A fair trade

They find Dottie seated in a cafe near enough to the Danube for the air to be cool and scented by the river. Dottie is still a tall, slim woman. She has delicate hands, angular facial bones. She was probably all coiled muscle in her youth but now, Clint thinks, she looks fragile and delicate.

Dottie smiles at Natasha, a fond and grandmotherly sort of smile. She rises a little when Natasha bends down to give her a kiss on the cheek, as if this old Red Room matron hadn’t overseen so many of the horrors done to her.

“Dottie, this is the person I was telling you about, Clint,” Natasha says.

Dottie turns her smile on him. “Well, Clint,” she says, “how do you do?” Her accent is pitch-perfect Osage. And Clint would know, he was born in Waverly. His mouth falls open. Dottie laughs like she’s told a joke, or maybe she thinks Clint's the joke here. She pats the seat next to her with one delicate hand.

“Come sit with me, tell me all about what Natalia gets up to over in New York.”

Clint drops down in the chair and puts his bag at his feet. Dottie nods a Natasha.

“Get me another coffee and one of those little pistachio cakes. Bring something for Clint to have as well. Something with meat. Take the dishes away. Except the pastries, leave those.”

“Yes, mama,” Natasha says. She leans forward and begins to clear the table. Clint watches her work. She doesn't speak, just gathers up the dirty dishes, sets the pastries in the exact middle of the table, then joins the queue to place an order.

Dottie turns to Clint. “I see why she lives in New York,” she says. “It's such an exciting town. I was there myself, you know, after the war. But I haven’t been back for years. It’s very hard to travel when you’re my age. Is Margaret still alive?”

Clint clears his throat. “Sorry, I don’t know Margaret.”

“Carter,” Dottie says impatiently. “Oh come now, Margaret, no, wait. Peggy. Peggy Carter.”

Clint nods. “Yeah.”

“How you go from a name like ‘Margaret’ to a name like ‘Peggy’ I really don’t understand. But English is a devil of a language.” She pats Clint's knee with her delicate hand. “You’re in love with her,” she says.

“Nat?” He sounds like an _idiot_. He clears his throat. "Uh, I mean, yeah. I am."

She nods. "Widows are incapable of love." Dottie says. “They're broken, all of them. Natalia was one of the most gifted and most broken children I have ever seen. Magnificent. Hardly even human. She'll never love you. She can't.” 

Clint has never wanted to hit an old lady before, but there it is. There’s the copper nail someone drove into Natasha when she was a child. So much makes sense to Clint now.

“That’s a load of bullshit,” he says. Then he adds, “ma’am.”

Dottie’s smile twists a little. “Do you know what I did to the last man who fell in love with my daughter?”

Clint nods. “The Winter Soldier,” he says. “You reset him. In front of her, I bet.”

Dottie nods. “As a matter of fact I did. And when they returned him to us, they had wiped him clean. It was good for her.” She regards him for a long time, a steady, unblinking gaze. Clint looks back, tries to imagine looking through her, trying to visualize a target beyond her. “Are you going to ask her to marry you?” she asks.

He wants to say, _that’s none of your business,_ and he wants to say, _what the hell difference does it make to you, you nasty old bat?_ and he wants to just lie and tell her _yes_ because it’ll be so much easier. He starts to speak and then remembers Natasha’s warning. He stops. He frowns.

“No ma’am,” he says.

The lines of her face harden fractionally. “Why not?" she asks. "What's wrong with her? She's smart and strong and beautiful. What else could you possibly want? Or is it that you don't trust her?”

“It's because I’m a bad husband,” Clint says. Dottie frowns at him and Clint shrugs. “I tried it three times and I never got any better at it. But I got three beautiful women to agree to marry me. So I guess that means I'm a good boyfriend.”

Dottie sits back and folds her hands in her lap. “You listen to her. Good.” She pushes the plate of tiny pastries in front of him. “Eat.”

He looks at the plate and then glances up. Natasha’s standing at the till, ordering. Clint's not sure if he should do this or not. And getting it wrong might mean two minutes of cyanide-induced agony and then death. It's not how he imagined he'd go out. And there's nothing ignoble in being killed by a Matron of the Red Room, but he's kind of attached to living, actually. Sweat breaks out on the back of his neck.

“Uh, what… so, what are these?” he asks, hoping to stall for time.

“Food, Clint. They are food." Dottie says. "You have that in Iowa. I'm sure of it.”

He nods. “Um. Which kind should I try?” he asks.

“I wouldn’t kill you,” she tells him. “I'd have Natalia do it.” She points to the plate. “The pineapple is too sweet. Eat the one with the raisins. They’re nice.”

He takes the little, round pastry and bites into it. His mouth is so dry he can’t even taste it. Plus, the raisins are squidgy. It takes a bit of work to swallow the whole thing down.

“Aren’t you eating?” he asks when he can talk again.

Dottie chuckles. “ _Lubopitnoy Varvare otorvali nos na bazare_ ,” she says.

“Huh?”

“Exactly,” she answers. Then her smile returns and she sits forward again. Natasha is coming over to them, a cup and saucer of creamy coffee and a tiny green square in one hand, and something that looks like a pastry-wrapped steak in the other. She sets the coffee down and then the food.

“Where’s yours?” Clint asks.

“Mama,” Natasha says instead of answering, “did Clint tell you we brought a little gift?”

Dottie leans forward. “Oh, Natalia, you know I don’t _need_ anything.” She sounds like a everybody’s favourite grandmother again, all sweet and fragile. And Natasha sounds like her doting, loving granddaughter. But both of them are deadly, and they haven't spoken to one another for years, and Natasha obeyed Dottie's orders exactly. And Clint can't help noticing those orders didn't include getting anything for herself. There's a very serious, very precise choreography going on here, and Clint's screwed up enough stuff for one week. He puts his hands in his lap and shuts his mouth and holds still.

“I know you don’t need anything, mama,” Natasha's saying sweetly. “But I thought you might like it.” She digs through her bag and pulls out a small, old fashioned, red jewellery box.

Dottie’s eyes sharpen at the sight of it. Then she sighs softly. She reaches for it and opens the lid. Inside there’s a little ballet dancer in a tiny tutu and she turns on one leg to a soft, metallic-sounding song. There’s a heavy, gold-coloured cylinder of lipstick in there too. The tube reads _SWEET DREAMS_. Dottie’s fingers caress the lipstick and then touch the little dancer gently on its head.

“Oh yes,” she whispers. “It’s lovely, Natalia. You always were such a clever girl."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god I hope I got the Iowa stuff right.


	28. Something small

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe have a unicorn chaser for after this one.  
> Thanks to Zarhooie for the horrible, horrible soup scene. You make me cry, Zars, and I adore you.

 

Bucky has learned to go within when the waits are long. When they were training him time abraded. Interminable hours. Minutes that seemed stuck in place. He resisted the functions of his body, holding himself rigid, imagining, as he should not have been, that implacable rigidity was what they wanted from him.

It wasn’t.

There was a very small room where he was shackled, where he could only stand. That room cured him. In that room he learned many things. He learned that standing could be agony, and that exhaustion would force unconsciousness, regardless of pain. He learned to be pliant and to do nothing, say nothing, resist nothing. He learned to wait within. It’s easier there.

 

_*_

 

Someone says, _Hang on Buck, we’re just about there._

Someone else says, _I cannot believe this is my life now._

Someone else says, _Pretty cool, huh?_

The light has changed. The sensations against his skin have changed. He has been moved between handlers before. In those cases the move was done with him sitting upright in the back of a troop transport, or once, lying curled in the trunk of a car. Now he is being held like a child against a warm chest, and listening to the steady, quick beat of a heart being exerted. This is different. He wants to know what is going on.

 _No_ , the voice his mind tells him, _Pochemuchka_. _The outside world is not for you._

But the heart against his ear is working hard. And the scent of the body behind his is the scent of home. And the voice that whispers, _Seriously, more stairs?_ above his head belongs to Steve.

His throat contracts, his mouth readies words.

NO, the voice in his mind says before he can complete the thought. _Pochemuchka_.

But it’s Steve. Bucky knows it’s Steve.

_You know what will happen if you move. You know what they will do to you. Or did you forget?_

The voice in his mind makes him remember.

He can't sit through that slide show. He goes back inside to wait.

 

*

 

Someone says, _Anything from either of them?_

Someone says, _Clint says they saw the Matron. He says she’s something else._

Someone says, _What about the code?_

Someone says, _Clint says Natasha thinks they got it._

 

*

 

Someone whispers, _If it doesn't work I might actually kill Clint_.

Someone whispers, _No point worrying about any of that till we try it. You sure you're okay without backup for a bit?_

Someone whispers, _Yeah, Sam. Thanks._

Someone sighs. Someone folds a warm hand over his. Someone whispers, _True north_ _._ But that's not the code either.

 

* 

 

 _Hey Voice_ , Bucky calls in his mind. The Voice doesn’t answer, but he knows it’s there. It’s always there. _Hey, who are you?_

He waits but the Voice doesn't answer. _Where did you come from?_ The Voice is silent.

_I want to talk to him._

_No_ , it answers.

_I’m gonna talk to him._

The roar in his head is like a physical blow. _NO._

It takes him a minute to reorder his thoughts. _Why not?_

Silence. Nothing. As if the Voice has disappeared. It hasn't. Bucky knows it hasn't.

_Why shouldn’t I?_

Then, quietly, _Do I have to show you the training again?_ The Voice sounds tired.

 _I remember it,_ he answers. He waits, but the Voice seems gone. _Hey Voice,_ he calls. _You still there?_

 _That depends,_ the Voice answers. _Are you looking for an argument?_

_Maybe._

_Then no._

Bucky would laugh, if it was allowed.

 _Listen,_ he says _, I’ve been thinking._

_You are not supposed to think._

_Hard habit to break._

_Smart-ass,_ it answers.

 _If I ever doubted you were me,_ Bucky tells the Voice, _I don’ t any more._

Silence.

 _You’ve been trying to keep me safe,_  Bucky says. _You dumped memories when I was in danger, and you held stuff back._

_Yes._

_Every time I try to do something against training, you kick in and try to stop me. You know what happens after, don't you? Because I've done it before._

_Yes,_ the Voice says quietly. _Many times. You're a stubborn jackass James Barnes. You never learn. You have to obey. We are punished when we disobey. If we were just good enough we would be rewarded. If you would just do as you were told, if you would just_ give up _it would stop_ hurting.

He hesitates. _Listen, Voice, there’s just the wipes if we don't obey, and cryo when we do. And the resets for when those aren't enough. There's never going to be a time when it doesn't hurt._

_You must obey. I will make you obey. And when you obey it will stop hurting._

He thinks about that. _What makes you say that?_

There's a long silence, and then the Voice says, _he promised._

But Bucky doesn't remember. The Voice shows him.

 

 

Bucky was so young, then. So young. Huddled in the corner of a bare concrete room. His uniform trousers almost worn right through, too thin to be warm now, and his shoulder aching like a bad tooth, too tender even to bear the touch of a shirt. He was shaking, gripping the arm. He was whispering, his voice coming back to him off the concrete, just tumbling words, hardly any sense in it. _Oh god Steve hurry up and get here hurry up pal if you don't get here there's gonna be nothing left I'm gonna crack up you gotta get here Stevie you gotta get here you should see what that quack did to me you're gonna be so mad when you see._

The sound of footsteps. The sigh of cloth as someone squatted down. He flinched, covering up his aching arm. But the hand did not hurt him. The touch was gentle, fingers stroking at his hair. It pulled him apart like fingers breaking open an egg. Someone started to cry. Someone said, "Let me go. Please let me go."

"You are not a prisoner," the man said softly. "There are no prisoners with Hydra. There is only order, and order only comes with pain. Pain is the greatest of teachers. You must learn to obey, and then the pain will stop.”

He nodded, sniffling, face scraping the concrete floor, right hand gripping the left arm. It would only be until someone came for him. It would only be until he could get away. It would only be until he could stand the pain again. Obey. Survive. The hand was not hurting him. "Do you promise?" he whispered.

The man laughed softly. "I promise."

 

 

Bucky would sigh if he could. He can see Voice now. The Voice is a young man. A kid. No shirt, worn trousers, eyes staring, right hand gripping his left shoulder, blood still seeping from the suture of metal and flesh. _He promised_ , Voice says again, softly this time.

 _Voice,_ he says softly, _he lied._

 _NO_ , the Voice says, booming in his head again. _We just have to OBEY and it will STOP HURTING._

 _No,_ Bucky tells the kid softly. _I don't think it will._ He hesitates. _Besides,_ he adds carefully, _It's not just me. Y_ _ou've done it too. On the helicarrier. You disobeyed._

The Voice bellows:

> _CODE: You’re my friend ACCEPTED_
> 
> _CODE: To the end of the line ACCEPTED_
> 
> _CODE: You know me ACCEPTED_

_Yeah,_ Bucky tries to say it gently, _I don’t think any of those were actually codes._

In the vast silence that follows he imagines the Voice reeling.

_Listen, Voice, you kept me alive a long time, but it's not true, not the stuff about the pain, and not the stuff about 'no prisoners'. If was true they wouldn't have needed the wipes and the cryo. And they wouldn't have made the resets for when those weren't enough._

Voice says nothing.

Bucky pushes forward a bit. _You and I both know that Pochemuchka’s the big one. If we don’t get out of here while we can, someone’s going to say the other half of that reset and I don’t know what happens to us then. We might both go away._

_Death?_

_Maybe. Maybe emptiness, like in the Red Room. Maybe that forever._

Silence. Then, _What do you want?_ The Voice asks.

_To disobey. Before it's too late._

A long, long silence follows. But Bucky can wait. He’s very good at waiting.

 _But it's dangerous,_ the Voice says. He's pleading now, and he sounds so young. _If we're caught they will drag us through the woods. They will cut off our arm. They will laugh at us and tell us to stop screaming. They will put us in the chair_ _. Or the room. Or in the cold._

 _Just a test,_ Bucky says. The Voice has always seemed so big to him. Now it sounds little and afraid.  _One test. To show you that those things won't happen. We can disobey. We can keep disobeying. I think we might have to, if we want to survive._

 _Something small,_ the Voice says at last.

 

*

 

Someone says, _Okay, soup’s up_.

Someone says, _Hey, boy, no this isn’t for you._

Bucky comes out of the place where he waits. He sees: Kitchen counter. Stove. Steaming pot. Half a loaf of bread. Large yellow dog. A home.

Steve leans into Bucky’s field of vision and Christ but he looks awful. His skin’s all shiny and his eyes are dark-ringed. He looks like he’s been sick for days, like he’s had a fever. He sets a bowl of soup down on the table beside them and sits down opposite Bucky. He's talking. A steady stream of words that congeal into meaning for Bucky after a moment of effort.

“…so I guess Tony’s taken a shine to him. He’s talking about rebuilding Sam’s wings. Anyway, it’s just us.” He leans forward and smooths something over Bucky’s chest, it rustles like stiff fabric or paper. Steve takes the bowl and spoon and leans forward. “It’s split pea,” he says, spooning up a little. “It was either that or mushroom and you used to hate mushrooms. It came out of a can, but it’s actually pretty good.”

There is warmth near Bucky’s mouth and the scent of salt and spices. His mouth waters so suddenly and so hard it aches. He’s _hungry_. He’s _starving_. Then there’s food in his mouth. He holds very still; it's as if the Voice is pulling all his muscles taut.

 _Okay_ , he tells the Voice in a soft voice _, but it’s Steve. It’s Steve, and it’s okay._ It’s not the big room with the drain in the floor, or little room where he could not sit. It’s somewhere else. _And we agreed on this, remember?_

 _One thing,_ the Voice says. _Small._

_Yeah._

The locks come off him. He swallows the mouthful of soup. He blinks. He feels like he’s covered in a layer of rust. Steve’s scooping up more soup. When he looks back Bucky meets his eyes.

Steve’s creased face softens just a little. “Hey,” he whispers, leaning in. “Bucky, _hey_." He sets down the spoon, warm hands come up to frame Bucky's face. It does not hurt. He leans against one palm. He wants to say Steve's name. Steve's smiling, smiling like he just got punched. "You're fighting it, aren't you? Listen, Clint and Natasha are going to get the code. As soon as they get it I'll use it. We're going to undo this. Just hang on."

He opens his mouth to tell Steve not to, but the Voice says _No, one thing, ONE SMALL THING, you promised,_ and pulls him back inside.


	29. Unicorn chaser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like we have all earned a little fluff after the last installment.

“Hey, Nat.”

It’s Clint. She blinks and tears her eyes away from the lit-up Chain Bridge, and the glitter of its reflection on the surface of the river. He’s got a hand on her shoulder. “Hmm?” she asks.

“I asked if you were okay.”

From the look on his face, he asked a couple times.

“Oh.” She takes a deep breath. “Yeah. Just, that flight’s catching up with me.” It’s true, but that’s not all. She doesn’t want to lie, not to Clint. “And seeing Dottie is…” she looks for the word and can’t find it. She shrugs and spreads her hands.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. He licks his lips. “She, uh. You called her _mama_. Is she the one who raised you?”

She looks at Clint, and she considers the simplicity of the question, and the enormous complexity of the answer. “Pass,” she says. He nods. He looks back at the illuminated bridge.

“It’s not true you know,” he says. He says it so quietly she almost misses the words under the rumble of traffic and the lapping of the water. “What she taught you. It’s not true.”

Natasha smiles at him. “Clint, _what_ are you talking about?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you scared before today,” Clint says. Natasha’s smile falls away. He glances back at her. “I fucked up, Nat. I fucked up when I said that code. And you… you just did something real difficult to get me out of trouble. If that’s not love I don’t know what is.”

It’s as if the world has collapsed upon her. Narrowed to a point. There is only herself, and Clint, and the glittering river, and the Chain Bridge illuminated in the dark. “You’re a bad husband,” she says quietly, “but a good boyfriend.”

Clint throws his head back and laughs. “You were listening, damn, I knew it. Your bag was bugged.”

“Of course it was.” She laughs too. “My god, Clint, she’s a _Matron_. You didn’t think I’d just walk away and leave you there.”

“See,” Clint says, pointing at her. “That’s what I mean. That right there. It’s easy for you. You just do it. You care. About me, and about Steve, and… and that’s love.” Clint puts his hands in his pockets and hunches up a little and looks back out at the bridge. “Look, you know how I feel, but what you don’t know is… is that I don’t ever want to not be your friend.” He stops and frowns. “If that makes any sense.”

She smiles. “I get it.”

He nods. “I just wanted you to know it’s not true. What she taught you. Everything else…” He gestures vaguely in the air in front of him, then runs both hands through his hair. “Aww, hell," he whispers. "Pass.”

They have a rule. After someone says ‘pass’, the topic’s off the table for twenty-four hours. They don’t talk about it. Natasha doesn’t want to be the first to break that rule. So she won't _talk_ about it. Instead she steps a little closer to Clint and reaches for his hand.

He looks sharply up at her. He takes a step back, then laughs through his nose and smiles a nervous smile. “Please don’t push me into the river,” he says. "I didn't bring any other clothes."

“Don't be ridiculous. I wasn't going to push you into the river." She takes his hand, warm and heavy, fingers callused from the bow. 

“Oh,” Clint says. He looks down at where Natasha's fingers are interlaced with his. He looks back at her. " _Oh,_ " he says again, eyes going wide. "Do you, uh, maybe want to get dinner or something?"

She laughs a little. "Yes," she says. "But first I would like you to kiss me."

He nods a few times. "Me too. I mean, I can do that," he says. He slides his free hand up the back of her neck and pulls her in close. He sighs. "Oh man. Nat. I would _love_ to do that."

As it happens, Clint is a very good kisser.


	30. Destiny

“Okay, okay, okay,” Tony says. They are driving back toward Bed-Stuy. Tony’s at the wheel, Sam’s in the passenger seat up front. Tony’s driver is in the back seat, looking bored. “I get it,” Tony says. “I get why you didn’t come to the tower. I’m disappointed, but I get it. Secrecy versus security.”

Sam grins. “Actually, we’ve got security too.”

“I don’t know much about Clint Barton but I know he doesn’t live in a building with security,” Tony says.

Sam shrugs. “I guess Barnes made some friends before me and Steve caught up to him. They’ve been keeping an eye on the place while we’re there.”

“The bunch of baby-supers that have been hanging around with Spider-Man?” Tony asks. He cocks his head and sticks out his lower lip. “Okay, yeah, I could see how having a venomous lady and a a snake-guy doing security detail could be good. Not as good as Happy, obviously,” he adds, glancing over his shoulder at the guy in the suit back there. Happy seems to have diplomatic ears. He doesn’t say anything, but Sam’s watching in the rear view mirror, and his eyes crinkle just a bit.

“What about you?” Tony asks, “what’s happening after this?”

Sam shakes his head. “I dunno yet. I feel like if I take any more time out from the VA they might go looking for a permanent replacement. Besides, I’ve got a group of vets who expect me to be at meetings and I…” he takes a deep breath and lets it out in a sigh.

“So, that big sigh? I’m told that’s not the sound of a happy man,” Tony says. He leans forward and grabs a handful of something from a bag stuffed into the cup holder. “Pistachios,” he says, gesturing. “Hungry?”

Sam shakes his head.

Tony munches for a second. “You should come work for the BBDL. Pepper likes you. Barnes is going to need counselling. You’re… what, you’ve got some kind of counselling certification, right?”

Sam hesitates. He looks down at the leather upholstery and then back at Tony. “Thanks,” he says quietly, “but I think I need a break from that stuff for a bit.”

Tony makes a noise. “Hanging around with World War Two veterans is starting to wear thin?”

Sam makes a face. “Maybe a little. I had this conversation with Clint at the hospital and... it was the first conversation I’ve had in I don’t know how long where we didn’t talk about war.” He shrugs. “I like people, but I am really tired of war.”

Tony chews noisily for a second. Then, “You’re hired,” he says.

Sam laughs. “Told you, I’m taking a break from all that for a bit.”

“Test pilot.”

“What?”

“I saw you today, you’re fearless on those wings. I need somebody with experience flying to run some tests on prototypes. You have an excellent resume. Plus, I’m pretty much guaranteed you're not a spy for Justin Hammer, and you’re definitely not Hydra. Also you’re about my height and pretty close to my weight.”

“You’re serious?”

“Of course. You have no idea how hard it is to find someone who’ll just put on a pair of wings and jump off a high thing.” He double-parks outside a cafe and throws a pistachio into his mouth. “Great interview. Let’s get a coffee and wait for the traffic to clear. We can talk about your new position.”

“Tony, I live in DC. I have another job.”

Tony shrugs. “Happy can organize your move.”

Now Happy looks like he’s paying attention. He nods at Sam. “Sure.”

Sam looks from Happy to Tony and back again.

“It’s no trouble,” Happy adds.

Sam sits back in the seat. He looks at Happy. “Is he always like this?”

Happy nods. “Usually.”

“Way more fun than the VA,” Tony says.

"You know I've never been a pilot, right?"

Tony gestures back and forth between them. "Another thing we have in common," he says. "You should come work for me. It's probably destiny."

Sam sighs. “I have really missed flying,” he admits.


	31. Tearing the nose off

 

Someone wraps something warm and heavy around Bucky's shoulders. He is falling forward just a little, then his momentum stops and he is leaning. Something heavy is on the back of his head, sliding through his hair. Something warm is under his cheek.

Someone says, _It’s gonna be okay._

Someone says, _I promise. It’s gonna be okay._

Someone says, _I've got you._

 

 

Someone’s phone rings.

 

*

 

Steve disentangles himself from Bucky. His phone is on the table, between the uneaten bowl of soup and the water glass. He grabs it, answers short of breath like he’s been running too long and too fast.

“Steve?”

Natasha’s voice is tinny and distant.

“Oh thank God,” Steve whispers.

“Steve?” she asks. “You okay?”

“Do you have the code?”

“Steve listen—”

“Natasha, _please_.”

“Steve,” she says again. Her voice is soft and low and he knows that tone. “This is important.”

 _Oh God_ , he thinks and leans over to brace himself, elbows on knees. “Tell me you got it,” he says.

“I think we’ve got it.”

He closes his eyes. A weight comes off him.

“But.”

His heart seems to stop in his chest.

“Steve, this is out of the Red Room. You have to understand. Barnes wasn’t wrong when he said agents from the Red Room don’t have friends.”

“You—”

“—Are not an agent of the Red Room any more,” she finishes for him. “That’s part of why I’m telling you this. I don’t know what this code does.”

“The person who gave it to you didn’t say?”

“She gave it to Clint. And, no, she didn’t say. But, listen. The Red Room always has its own agenda. Steve, you have to think carefully before you use this. It’s a risk.”

He nods into the phone.

“You’re with him, aren’t you?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“I want you to go into another room,” she says. “Somewhere he won’t be able to hear you. It’s a phrase. I’m going to walk you through the pronunciation so you have it right before you try to use it, if you decide you want to.”

He nods at the phone. “Yeah,” he says. "Good idea." He looks back at Bucky. His eyes have closed. He looks almost like he’s sleeping where he sits, except his forehead is creased. He touches Bucky’s shoulder. “I’m gonna be right back,” he whispers. "Okay," he says, stepping into the bedroom and pushing the door closed. "I'm ready to hear it."

"It's a phrase," she tells him. " _Lubopitnoy Varvare otorvali nos na bazare_."

"What… what does it mean?"

"It's an idiom," she says softly. "It's something you say to someone who asks too many questions."

Something hot boils up in Steve's chest. He forces it back down. "Okay," he says. "Let me listen to it again. I want to get it right."

 


	32. Asset, killer, bringer-of-grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh god, here it is. I hope you like it.

 

“Why did you do that?” Bucky shouts. Voice retreats.

“You promised," Voice answers. It sounds hurt. "You said 'one thing'.”

“It’s _Steve_. Steve’s not going to hurt us. That's what I was showing you."

“He could hurt us. He could be Hydra.”

“He’s not fucking Hydra,” he bellows. “That was a _mistake_. I made a mistake. I…” he shakes is head. “You have to let me go back out there. You heard him. You _heard_ him, he's trying to get the code. And when he gets it he’ll use it.”

“No,” Voice says. “It's too risky.”

For an instant Bucky’s too stunned to reply. Then, “Too risky?” he shouts. “You know what’s too risky? Waiting to hear the second half of that code.”

Voice says nothing. Bucky tries to steady himself.

“That code could wipe us out for good."

“You know what they could do to us if you were caught disobeying,” Voice whispers. “I’m sorry. You can’t go out again.”

“What? _What?”_ He would grab Voice and shake him if he could. “Are you fucking kidding? What the hell's wrong with you? I just proved to you that nothing would happen if we disobeyed. This is what we were _waiting_ for. We could get free.”

The Voice roars up like a storm in his head. “Do you even know what you are? You're a monster. You're a nightmare. You're the god damned boogeyman. You think you can just go into the outside world and live like a human being? You can't. You're not. You never will be.”

“I am not a monster,” Bucky snaps. “I did what I had to do to survive.”

“Did you?" Voice snarls. “You never liked what you were doing? You never took _pride_ in your work? You never relished it?”

“I-I didn’t—”

“You _did_. Sometimes you _loved_ it.” 

The memories come like a wave and Bucky reels from them. 

“And what about putting someone in the chair? And what about hitting the seven instead of the three? Was that for survival too? Did you have to do that? Were you afraid of what would happen if you didn't? You _tortured_ him. And if you get out you're going to want him to forgive you. You’re going to want him to love you back. And when he doesn't it'll hurt and _I don’t want to be hurt any more._ ”

He wants to shout, he wants to argue. He can’t.

“Stop trying to get out,” Voice whispers. “Give up for once in your fucking life. Go back to the place where you wait. It won’t be much longer.”

But the two of them share blood and air, and Bucky can feel the thing that’s lurking under those words.

“You want someone to say it,” Bucky whispers.

“Yeah,” Voice says softly. “ _Pochemuchka_ is the big one. It’s going to take it all away. All the memories. All the pain. Everything they did to you, and everything you did after. You’re ruined, you know that. You can’t live out there any more. They’re going to hang you, or put you in jail. Or put you in a chair and turn the voltage way up.”

“Don’t,” Bucky whispers, recoiling.

“I’m just telling the truth,” Voice says. “He didn’t lie to us. He promised he would take the pain away if we obeyed. We did our work. We obeyed. This is our reward.”

Bucky goes cold. “What about Steve?" he asks, getting angry again. "He’s the one who’s going to say it.”

Voice laughs. “Who cares who says it, as long as it finishes everything?”

“He knows I'm in here trying to get out. You let me show him that. If he wipes me for good... He’s been trying to _save_ me, Voice. He’s been trying… even after everything I did. He’s still trying to save me. If he wipes me, it’ll kill him.”

There's a pause. There's a sigh. “Don't you understand?" the Voice says softly. "Steve is  _dead_. They changed him, they took him away from you. Don't you remember when he was suddenly bigger? What they did to him, how they did it to you too? He's not our Steve any more. He's something else."

"No," Bucky says. "No, _you're wrong_. I was _wrong_."

"You're being tricked," Voice shouts. "You never fucking learn! I don’t want to be hurt any more. I'm taking over. You're not going out. We're waiting for the code.”

It takes Bucky time to know how to respond. If there's one thing Bucky knows about himself, it's this: They needed the chair to control him, and they needed cryo to keep him. He's stubborn. He's smart. He's a pain in the ass. And he's got a history of willful disobedience.

He's probably done this before. He's probably good at it.

 

 

He runs. He scrambles out of himself and into the world. He sees. Table. Bowl. Water glass. He grabs for something, anything, gets his right hand on the water glass. Voice grabs him, muscles locking down. It makes his hand clench around the glass and it shatters. Pain would make him gasp if his body would allow it. Voice is hauling him back but he's fighting it.

Something’s moving across the kitchen. He looks.

There’s a door slowly opening, and Steve stepping from the dark room beyond, head slightly down, a phone pressed to his ear. "Yeah," Steve murmurs. "Yeah, I'll be careful. Thanks, Nat."

There’s a pain in his hand so huge and hot it’s incandescent.

"Stop," Voice says. "Stop it, _it hurts!_ "

Steve drops down onto his chair like he's a sack of wet flour. He sets the phone down on his lap. He looks at Bucky and shakes his head a little. He whispers a question to Bucky, but Bucky can't hear it because Voice is screaming in his head, "Stop, it _hurts, it hurts!"_

"I can't, you asshole,” he roars at Voice. “You're locking me down. I can't open my hand."

"Promise you won't tell him, _promise_."

Steve licks his lips. He sits forward. His big hands frame Bucky’s face.“Oh God, please let this be the right thing,” he whispers. Then he settles his hands on Bucky’s shoulders and begins to speak in careful, halting words.

“ _Lubopitnoy Varvare…”_

It takes the breath out of him. It wakes him like a slap. His heart speeds up. He’s running out of time fast.

“Ow, fuck, Voice, fucking, okay, _okay_ I fucking promise! Let me open my god damned hand.”

“… _otorvali nos na…”_

The locks come off. Bucky lurches forward. "Steve, it'll—”

Voice heaves him back. "You _promised_ ," it screams. It shakes him like a thunderclap. When he can see again, Steve’s eyes are wide and fixed on him.

“Bucky? Bucky tell me. Tell me what you need me to do?”

Bucky tries. He _tries._ But Voice is screaming, " _You promised you wouldn't!_ " and the fear is bleeding out of Voice and into Bucky. He feels sick with it. He feels like he’s falling, panic and terror lodged in his throat. He looks at Steve and Steve leans forward.

“Fight,” he whispers. “C’mon Bucky, fight this thing.”

 _Oh Stevie,_ Bucky thinks, _you have no idea how hard I’m fighting_.

Steve's looking at him, his hand on Bucky's good shoulder. Bucky can hear himself breathing hard, like this is a physical fight, like he's trying to outrun something. 

Voice is sobbing. "I just want it to stop, that's all, just  _stop_." And Bucky remembers.

He remembers lying curled in the corner of a dark concrete cell. The stroking hands on his hair that moved to his naked belly, to the waistband of his worn-out trousers. Gentleness that turned sinister. He remembers trying to obey. Pain, shame, misery. He remembers how they taught him not to trust those who seemed kind.

"Steve's not going to do that to us," he tells Voice.

He shows Voice memories of his own. The old ones. He thought they were useless. He thought they did not matter. But they do. Bucky lets the memories unspool. Sneaking into the blue shop. Steve struggling against a rattling cough. Chicken soup. _Jerk. Punk._ The warm swell of pleasure when Steve smiled at Bucky, even when his nose was bloodied. Endless trouble, and so worth the effort.

He shows Voice the memory of a skinny man, under-grown, doubled up, trying to be as discreet as possible about throwing up while the Cyclone goes rumbling and rushing by behind them. _Shouldnta made you ride that thing_. And he shows Voice later, a snow-clad mountainside. Himself all jangling nerves. Steve impossible, perfect, and golden in that new body, grinning. He remembers marveling at the sight of him. It's the suture of small Steve and big Steve. The join where both overlap, where he realized that Steve had not been dragged onto a table and tormented. He had changed, but he had chosen it. He shows it to Voice.

_-Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?_

_-Yeah, and I threw up?_

_-This isn't payback is it?_

_-Now why would I do that?_

"How would he remember that, if it wasn't him?" Bucky asks.

Voice is silent for a moment.

"I forgot those things,” it whispers at last. 

"They took them from you," Bucky says. "But I got some of them back. This is Steve, our Steve. This is the Steve that got us off Zola's table. This is the Steve that made the pain stop last time."

Voice makes a very small noise. "I… I want to talk to him,” it whispers.

 

*

 

Steve’s holding his breath. Bucky’s breathing is ragged and unsteady. His eyes are moving, like he’s looking around the room. Sometimes they settle on Steve and he knows Bucky is seeing him. He keeps waiting for Bucky to say something, to ask for help, for the code. And then,

“Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy,” Bucky whispers in a sing-song voice. “Rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief. Asset, killer, bringer-of-grief.”

It's a rhyme from their childhood. Sort of. It's been a little mangled. “What?” Steve asks.

Bucky raises his head a little. He looks at Steve. His eyes are a little unfixed and tired. “Tell me what I have to be to make the pain stop. Pick something.”

Steve exhales. “Bucky,” he whispers. “I don’t want you to _be_ anything. I just want you to be okay.”

Bucky’s looking at him steadily, eyes on his and it’s unnerving. Steve doesn’t know what it means, Bucky hasn’t been like this before. He’s practically staring. Steve looks down at his feet.

"If I ask, will you finish saying that code?"

Steve gets his lip between his teeth and shakes his head.

"No," he says. He looks up again. "Listen to me: If you hurt, I'll look after you. If you're scared, I'll stay with you. I love you." He laughs softly. "Like Tony said, you're my true north. Always have been. I won't say that code to you. You were scared of it. And I... I let you fall once and I was lost without you. I won't let you fall again. I won't hurt you. I won't let anyone hurt you. You're safe. Whatever happened to you, it's over now. I promise."

A smile appears on Bucky's mouth and vanishes as quickly as it came.

“I told you,” Bucky whispers. Then he closes his eyes. He says,

 

 

> _CODE: I love you ACCEPTED_
> 
> _CODE: true north ACCEPTED_
> 
> _CODE: I promise ACCEPTED_

 

*

 

Bucky blinks. He breathes in, and the sigh that follows comes out shaking. “Please don’t say it,” he says. “The code. Don’t. I don’t want to go away.”

Warm hands on Bucky. On his arms, then his shoulders, then his face. Steve so close. Eyes blue like Lake Baikal in summer, his mouth a little open. "I won't," Steve tells him. It's a promise. Bucky sighs again. This time it's relief. This time he sags a little when he does it.

"Don't run from me any more." Steve voice is shaking. He ducks his head and palms at his eyes. “Please stop running. I'm so sorry about what happened to you. I should have gone back. I should have searched. Please, _please_ let me help."

The words fill him up. It is like the first breath of warm air after cryo. It is like a drink of water after a long mission. It is like being human again. When Steve looks up again, Bucky leans forward to kiss him.

Steve’s mouth is soft and warm and all his life and more Bucky has longed to kiss it. Steve makes a little, startled noise and then presses forward too, arms sliding around him, bracing him, shoring him up on all sides, kissing him back hard. Steve’s breathing hard in his ear, whispering in between the gulping breaths, between kisses, whispering _I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Oh god, I’m so sorry._

“Makes two of us,” Bucky whispers when they part. He feels warm and calm and good, and Steve is coming apart at the seams, breathing rough and irregular, eyes  looking everywhere but at Bucky.

"I was so mad at Clint," Steve says. He laughs wetly. "God, I was _so_ _mad._ But I was just as stupid." Steve makes a small noise, a sad noise, and his eyes are suddenly as bright as glass again. "I would have done anything to save you. _Anything_." His voice changes, like someone's got him by the throat.

"No," Bucky says. He doesn't like pain. He doesn't like to see it either. “No, Stevie. Don’t cry.”

But Steve's eyes overflow and he laughs as they do. "Nat even warned me. I could have killed you. I just got you back. I just figured it out." He looks down and Bucky sees him blinking rapidly. "I just figured out that I'm in love with you and I… I coulda…" He stops, choking, and Bucky reaches for him and finds… Blood. Glass. His hands is a bleeding mess, studded with glass.

“Oh,” he whispers. The glass. He’d forgotten.

“Oh my god,” Steve says. Straightening up. “Oh my god, Bucky, you… here, let me see.”

“It hurts," Bucky murmurs, a little surprised.

"Of course it does. Here," Steve takes his hand and sets it palm-up on his lap. "How did you even do this?"

"I… I had to grab the glass." he laughs a little, softly. "I _really_ don't like pain. Can you…?" he starts and finds he can't say the rest. The words won't come. The Asset does not ask for help. The Winter Soldier does not suffer. There are still some locks on him. There will have to be negotiations with Voice. But not right now. Steve’s already nodding.

“Yeah, of course," he says. "Try and hold still. It doesn’t look too bad. I’ll be as gentle as I can."

Bucky feels the warmth settle over him again. He smiles. "I know," he whispers.

 


	33. A Red Room of one's own

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edits for the new book came in today so I have to wrap this up. I'm sorry! I hope you enjoy some pure, unadulterated fluff to soothe the burn of all that angst. Than you for reading and for all your wonderful comments! 
> 
> I hope you had a good time!

He wakes in the morning with Steve still curled around one side of him and the big yellow dog lying on his other side. He has a moment of intense clarity where he imagines himself looking at a picture of this, looking at it from a distance three weeks ago when this sort of comfort was utterly alien to him. He thinks about that. He thinks about how, for seventy years, people have been sleeping on progressively better beds, waking to watching the sun creep over floorboards covered in more belongings than they need, feeling warm and calm and peaceful. But for him it was always four concrete walls, or a cylinder of steel with a window on the outside world. For him it was always the mission, the chair.

He contracts hard in the bed, knees coming up, arms covering his head. The dog snuffles at him. Steve makes a muffled noise and stirs against him, then whispers, “hey. You okay?” He slides his hand up and down Bucky’s arm. Bucky can’t make his lungs work right. He has to gasp when he runs out of air. Steve makes a small, sad noise and burrows close against his back. His arms tighten again. The dog wags its tail hopefully.

He gasps a few more times and his body starts to uncurl. Something about the warmth of the bed, and the nearness of someone else, and the dog’s ridiculous, uncertain tail-wagging. He takes a deep breath and it makes him feel steady, but there’s still a looming unease in of him. There was a time he knew how to fill up the rolling expanse of his future, but for most of his life that’s been managed for him. Now there’s a vast emptiness in his future. No orders or missions. No cryo to span the distance.

“What happens now?” he whispers. “You said… the other day you said you were bringing me in. You still gonna do that?”

“Yeah,” he whispers. “There are a few people you have to see. Some people from SHIELD and some of Tony’s people. They’re good people. We’ll… we’ll go see them today.”

Bucky nods. He uncovers his head and looks at the bandages on his hands. He knows his own body; the wounds will have healed. There probably won’t be a mark left. Since Zola, pain and death have been divorced in him. It’s probably the kind of thing SHIELD would take an interest in.

“I…” He wants to say _I don’t want to go,_ but there are things he is not allowed to say, and a refusal of orders is one of those things. Some locks are on hard, and it’s going to take time to chip them free.

“What is it?” Steve asks.

Bucky closes his eyes. “Don’t leave me there,” he says.

Steve’s arms tighten again. “I won’t."

Bucky nods.

“Bucky, listen to me. We’re coming back here. You’re coming back here. No more codes. No more handlers.”

“Okay,” he whispers. Because it’s Steve, he believes it. He turns over so that he can look Steve in the eyes. “Okay,” he says again.

 

*

 

Sam is _so_ hung over. He might be the most hung over he’s ever been in his life. He might have the maximum hangover possible for a human being who is still alive. He might have thrown up a few times this morning. He might have cursed Tony Stark, and every Stark that ever was, as well as the inventor of alcohol. He's definitely cursed himself.

He’s still trying to put together the pieces of last night. After the cafe there was a burger place where they sat down at a table with Colonel Rhodes, and after that Sam’s not really sure, except there was some kind of a cartoon marathon at Tony’s place and there were a lot of people there.

He remembers Rhodey, _Rhodey_ (“C’mon, It’s what my friends call me.” “No, I couldn’t.” “You want me to order you to stop calling me ' _sir_ '?” “Oooh, fight, fight, fight.” “ _Tony._ ”) calling goodnight when the sky was light grey and the birds were starting to pipe. He doesn’t remember getting to the bed in the guest room, but when he woke up there it was because Tony had sent Happy up with a coffee, and invitation to come back tomorrow, and a ride back to Clint’s. And God bless Happy, who noticed his passenger was suffering and hit a drive-through and picked up a greasy eggy thing, something supposedly related to orange juice, and some bad coffee for Sam. 

Sam is feeling considerably better than he was. In fact, he’s just feeling well enough to have a sort of creeping dread about what happened last night. He _might_ have bought a place in New York with money he hasn’t yet earned from a job he hasn’t yet started at Stark Industries. He seems to remember Tony saying he thought that was an excellent idea. He seems to remember Rhodey saying it was a great idea. He pulls out his phone. Rhodey’s number is in his contacts, under "Rhodey". Sam closes his eyes and tries not to think too hard about that.

“We’re here,” Happy says not-too-loudly.

Sam cracks an eye and looks around. “Thanks,” he says.

“Water,” Happy advises as Sam sort of dribbles out of the car. “And more fried eggs.”

“Thanks,” Sam says, wincing in the horrible light of day. Happy waves and drives off.

Sam looks around. He was a soldier for a long time, and anyway, some habits are worth keeping. Dragon’s keeping watch from the building opposite, and there’s a little shred of webbing down on the concrete near the stoop, like maybe somebody got webbed while they were lurking. Good.

He lets himself in, gets winded just going up the stairs, and takes a minute before going through the apartment door. It would be nice if he didn’t look like a man who felt like there was a hundred tiny dancing gnomes all clog dancing behind his eyes.

 

* 

 

When the door to the apartment opens, the dog jumps down from the bed. Steve’s arms go slack and Bucky feels the bed shift as Steve sits up. “Sam?” he calls.

“Yeah," a voice calls back. "Don’t shout. I’m not feeling so hot.”

Steve smiles. He looks down at Bucky. “You ready to get up?”

Soft bed. Steve close. Sunlight. Warmth. “What kind of a question is that?” Bucky asks before he can stop himself.

Steve’s smile is like the sun coming up. He claps Bucky on the shoulder. “Come on, Sam’s a friend. He was helping me look for you. You’ll like him.”

Bucky has his doubts. He pushes himself up off the bed, and follows Steve out.

 

 

Sam is in the kitchen guzzling a glass of water, and the tap is still running. He holds up one finger, finishes the water, turns off the tap, and then offers his hand to Bucky. Bucky knows the gesture. He remembers it. He only hesitates a moment before he responds in kind.

“Sam Wilson,” Sam says, shaking Bucky’s hand.

Bucky swallows. He glances at Steve for what he’s not really sure. “Uh, Bucky. Bucky Barnes,” he mumbles. “How, um, how’d you do?”

“Wow,” Sam says softly. “Steve said you were doing good but I didn’t think you’d be doing this good.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say, but he thinks that was praise even if he’s not sure what that means. But it doesn’t seem to matter. Sam eases himself down on one of the kitchen chairs and sighs when he settles. Bucky watches. Sam moves around like he’s been hurt. He’s careful about all of his movements, and he’s squinting like he’s short-sighted, trying to see at distance.

“You okay?” Steve asks. And Bucky’s glad it’s strange because he remembers Sam, and he doesn’t remember Sam like this. He remembers him dangerous, flying, and _troublesome_.

Sam groans. “Do not go drinking with Tony Stark if you want to live a long a healthy life,” he says. “That is my advice to you.”

Bucky nods. He stores that piece of information away. Steve, though, Steve’s mouth curves in a secret sort of smile, then his expression changes to one of solicitude. “You want some coffee or something?”

“I would like a new head, but I’ll take coffee if that’s what’s on offer.” Sam gives Bucky a bleary look. “When are you guys going in?”

“After breakfast. I texted Hill and let her know he’s up and moving. She wants us to come in right away. The BBDL guys are already there.”

“Bucky Barnes Defense League,” Bucky murmurs. The kitchen falls silent. Steve holds perfectly still. Both Sam and Steve are staring at him. He shrugs. “They spray-painted my face everywhere. Made it really hard to move around actually,” he adds.

Steve smiles again. He goes back to the brewer and starts it up. The smell of fresh coffee fills the air and Bucky turns his head to watch the drips.

“Still like coffee?” Steve asks.

He nods.

Sam makes a little noise. He’s got his phone out, looking at the screen. “Nat and Clint are on their way back.” He looks at Bucky. “Natasha’s the red-head you, uh…”

“Tried to kill,” Bucky says, because Sam seems stuck, but Bucky knows the answer.

Sam’s eyebrows go up. “Yeah. And Clint’s the, um…”

“One who used the code.”

“Yeah.”

Bucky nods.

“You okay with that?” Sam asks.

“It’s what I would have done,” Bucky says quietly. “Steve almost did it.” He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter if he says it again. They’re one use only, those big ones.”

“I think as long as you’re not killing Nat, he won’t shout any more codes at you.”

“Haven’t managed to kill her yet,” Bucky murmurs. He’s thinking about the time before last. DC. A weight on his shoulders. Being ridden like a mechanical bull. He scowls. “Not for lack of trying.”

Steve puts a cup of coffee into his hands. “This is Clint’s place,” he says. “We’re guests.”

Bucky considers this. He nods. He knows that when you are a guest you should say something complimentary. “I like the bed,” he tries.

 

 

The others arrive before Bucky has finished the cup of coffee. Clint has brought a sheepish expression, a backpack full of pastries, and a DVD that he won't show Steve or Bucky. He’s also wearing a shirt that says _I am Clint Barton._ “You like it?” he asks when Sam remarks on it. “They had Avengers merch in London. Most of it was Thor stuff, but, what can I say? I’ve got good eyes.” He plucks the front of the shirt.

“We brought you guys both something,” Natalia says, parceling out bags, one to Sam, one to Steve, and one to him. He takes it because she’s pressing it into his hands.

“A gift?” he asks.

“No hard feelings,” she says.

He gives her the smile that shows his teeth and Clint’s chin comes up a fraction. “I don’t want gifts from the Red Room, Natalia,” Bucky says.

“I’m not Red Room any more,” she says while Clint bristles in silence. “And it’s Natasha Romanov. Things change, _Asset_.”

He hears Steve’s quick intake of breath, like he’s upset or alarmed, but the name makes Bucky smile. He looks down at the bag in his hands and then back at her. “Actually it’s Barnes,” he tells her.

She smiles back. “Open your present. You’ll love it.”

He glances at Sam, who’s already got his bag open, and is holding a large, red sweatshirt with a late white _A_ logo on the front. Then he looks at Steve. Steve’s got his bag open and is extracting something blue and limp and soft-looking. A sweater. There’s white writing in plastic letters on it. He holds it up. It says, _I am Steve Rogers_. Clint beams, like he’s seeing his very own child. He nods at Bucky.

“C’mon,” he says.

Bucky opens the bag and draws out the sweater. It says, _If found please return to Steve Rogers_.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Bucky says softly. “This is about seventy years too late.”

 

*

 

“They tried to kill him?” Natasha asks while Steve watches Bucky and Clint circling each other while Sam moderates.

“Yeah,” Steve says, tearing his eyes away from what might be the most intense conversation he’s ever seen in his life. “A nurse in the hospital. She ran, but Sam caught her.”

Natasha _hmms_ softly. “I wonder why they'd do that, if he was supposedly stripped down completely,” she murmurs.

Steve frowns at her. “What so you mean?”

She shrugs and looks thoughtfully at Bucky. “I mean he was out of reach after the code. He was useless as a weapon. I wonder… I wonder if Dottie has an axe to grind.” She smiles faintly, and then she looks at Steve. “If you didn't use the code, how did you do to get through to him?”

Steve shakes his head. “I didn't. I couldn't. It was awful. I would have done anything but… in the end he did it himself.”

She smiles. When Bucky comes over to stand by Steve she smiles at him too.

“What?” he asks in a low voice, like he doesn't trust that expression.

 _“Lubopitnoy Varvare otorvali nos na bazare,”_ she says softly.

Steve’s heart lurches. “ _Nat!_ ” he shouts.

Bucky laughs. Steve hasn’t heard him laugh yet and the sound of it strips away all the anger. He stares at Bucky, but Bucky doesn’t seem to notice. Instead he shrugs.

“Seventy years keeping my mouth shut,” he says, shrugging. “Can't blame me can you?”

“No,” she says softly. “No I can’t.”

Steve’s mouth is hanging open. He turns to her. “It wasn't a code?”

She looks over at him and shrugs. “Codes like that are one-time codes. Dottie must have given me one she’d already used.”

“ _Why?_ ”

Natasha shakes her head but she looks smug. She looks content. Her eyes are heavy-lidded and she glances over at Clint and then over at Bucky. “Dottie doesn’t like it when the girls have boyfriends,” she murmurs. “She never did. I bet she just _hates_ Clint. I bet she thinks they're going to kill each other.” She looks over at Steve. "I guess it never occurred to her there was somebody the Winter Soldier preferred."

Steve feels himself going red all the way down his neck and up to the tip of his ears. He looks into his coffee. "Well," he says softly. She bumps him with her elbow.

"Knew that kiss in the mall wasn't your first kiss." She grins. "Poor Clint."

Clint looks over at them. He frowns, like he’s heard his name and it’s made him nervous. “Did I hear that right?” he asks. "That was a dud code Dottie gave us?"

Natasha nods.

Clint puts his hands in his pockets and frowns. “So Budapest was pointless?” he asks.

Natasha smiles at him. “Oh,” she says. “I wouldn’t say that.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I ran out of time with this fic, so that means there may be a little more added in later, but not for a while. If you've enjoyed it and you want to know if there's new stuff, maybe subscribe so you get a ping in your inbox rather than having to check back.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] rich man poor man beggar man thief](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6058477) by [annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/annapods/pseuds/annapods), [OddityBoddity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OddityBoddity/pseuds/OddityBoddity)




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